From the authors:

Traditional approaches to community regeneration which define communities in solely geographic terms have severe limitations. They often failed to deliver on key social capital improvements such as improving trust between residents or fostering a greater sense of belonging.
In this report we argue for a new approach to community regeneration, based on an understanding of the importance of social networks, such an approach has the potential to bring about significant improvements in efforts to combat isolation and to support the development of resilient and empowered communities

Damon Centola

Or check out the full article on the journal’s website.

Today’s New York Times uses a network diagram to show the alleged flow if insider information between hedge fund managers and corporate executives.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/01/business/01galleon.html

It will be interesting to see how this case plays out.  The size and complexity of the network suggests that there is more than just information exchange taking place.  In particular, it will be interesting to see if there is what might be called “information laundering” in which tips are embedded in apparently legitimate communications using dyad-specific codes.  Stay tuned!

The international Network Theory Conference, organized by the ANN and SONIC research centers,  took place on Feb 19-20 at the University of Southern California. Bruno Latour delivered the keynote speech titled “Networks, Societies, Spheres: Reflections of an Actor-network theorist.” The four panels were focused on conceptual and methodological aspects of network theory, network inclusion and exclusion, network theories of power, and the semantic web. The list of presenters includes: Noshir Contractor, Peter Monge, Paul Leonardi, Yochai Benkler, Ernest J. Wilson III, Rahul Tongia, Karine Barzilai-Nahon, Wendy Hall, Nigel Shadbolt, David Grewal, and Manuel Castells.

Additional information: conference program, participant biographies and presentation slides. Brief summaries of all presentations and Q&A sessions will soon be posted on the ANN website.

Watch the full video from the event below
(use the side arrows to move forward and back through the conference panels)

(YouTube playlist  link)

It seems that social networking sites are almost “old news” these days. As a media platform, social networking sites (SNS) have been around since the late 1990s, and today the popular SNS Facebook.com boasts more than 350 million active users (nevermind all those people who’ve registered for accounts never to actually use them).

So what’s next for SNS? For 2010, geo-tagging and geo-targeting appear to be the latest trends. The AP recently reported on the emergence of the SNS Foursquare.com as one of the latest buzz-sites. What’s the buzz about? Foursquare – which currently has over 100,000 users in 100 cities – is basically a social network for your immediate circle of friends (and a way to meet people nearby). You report where you’re at currently, and where you’ve been recently, and it’s mapped and tracked on Foursquare. The catch is, you earn points for checking in to locations, and the most recent person to check in becomes the “mayor”. So you compete against your friends to earn points. It sounds simple, but can become very addictive.

Foursquare isn’t alone. A number of other companies are venturing into the geo-SNS space. Google recently launched Latitude, phones are increasingly supporting GPS, and Windows 7 and Mac’s Snow Leopard will soon be enable to actively report location for laptop users.

Not that this is anything new for academics. In 2007, Lee Humphreys (now at Cornell University‘s Department of Communication) wrote an article looking how users form social groups and social ties in mobile networks. What’s so new in 2010? For one, there’s a much large network of resources available for users of these networks. With more and more users having GPS-enabled devices, it’s easier to share your location with others. And the evolution of SNS has made people more comfortable with the notion that others will know where you’re at. Advertisers are tapping into this trend too, as Ad Age notes in an article this week. Geo-SNS and geo-targeting are allowing advertisers to target consumers based not only on what they do, but also where they are at.

Interesting right? And for us, as researchers, the relationship between “location” and “network formation” looks to be an area for future work. Happy Holidays.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Will Facebook buy Foursquare? (thenextweb.com)
• Location’s Social Paradox (techcrunch.com)

As the article says,”Although it may sound counterintuitive, loneliness can spread from one person to another, according to research being released Tuesday that underscores the power of one person’s emotions to affect friends, family and neighbors.” The article concludes, “The findings underscore the importance of social networks, several experts said. ‘For years, physicians and researchers thought about individuals as isolated creatures,’ said Stanley Wasserman, who studies social networks at Indiana University. ‘We now know that the people you surround yourself with can have a tremendous impact on your well-being, whether it’s physical or psychological.’”

Full article here

 “As the definition of people’s “networks” has expanded to include not just colleagues they’ve known for a decade, but also practically everyone they pass on the street, the quality of those connections has been greatly diluted. What rational conclusions can companies draw from this relationship game?”

 The full article is available here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/jobs/18pre.html?ref=jobs

“Several sociology studies, some going back decades, point to this proximity or “distance” effect. In Sacerdote’s own research, he studied e-mail exchanges among students on his campus. The e-mails were stripped of personal identification and content, as he was only looking to analyze the volume of e-mails.”

To see the full story, click here.

THAT Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks will increase the size of human social groups is an obvious hypothesis, given that they reduce a lot of the friction and cost involved in keeping in touch with other people. Once you join and gather your “friends” online, you can share in their lives as recorded by photographs, “status updates” and other titbits, and, with your permission, they can share in yours. Additional friends are free, so why not say the more the merrier?”

Read more in The Economist.