[Asis-l] Online Social Networks As Crystals?

[Seth Grimes]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2008, Gerry Mckiernan wrote:

> It has occurred to me that Online Social Networking [ 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_service ] may be envisioned 
> as Crystals [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystals ]
>
> Your Thoughts || Reactions / Related Research || Projects ?
>
> Are We In An Era of Social Crystallization?

No, doesn't work.  Crystals are regular, stable lattices in 
three-dimensional space of interconnected atoms or molecules of 
homogeneous type.  While crystals may contact faults and impurities, what 
makes them crystals is that they are *regular*, *stable*, and *in 3D 
space*.

Social networks are irregular, dynamic, heterogeneous in both node and 
connection types.  Many social networks are only partly discovered in the 
sense that many of the nodes and connections of real-world networks are 
hidden.  For example, what are the "Six Degrees of Separation" between me 
(Seth) and you (Gerry)?  I don't have a clue, but it's a good bet that 
either you and I know some person in common or that you and I each have 
acquaintances who know each other.  I can say this with some certainty 
without know who the links in our chain are or what's that foundation for 
the links, e.g., professional, personal, other.  If you're going to model 
social networks successfully, you're to have to accommodate such unknowns.

The commonality between crystals and social networks, I suppose, is that 
both may be modeled as graphs.  But I'd think that analysing crystals as 
graphs would have many shortcomings and simultaneously so much unused 
theoretical power that you wouldn't bother.

Nu?  Back to you...

 					Seth