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Social network theory views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes, depending on the relationships being studied. In its most simple form, then, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being studied. The network can also be used to determine the social capital of individual actors. These concepts are often displayed in a social network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines.
The shape of the social network has been found to be a key factor in a network's usefulness to the individuals it includes. Tighter networks, for example, are actually less useful to their members than networks with lots of empty spaces (social holes) or loose connections to other individuals outside the main network (weak ties). More open networks, with many weak ties and social holes, are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities to their members than closed networks with many redundant ties. In other words, a group of friends who only do things with each other already share the same knowledge and opportunities. A group of individuals where each has connections to other social worlds is likely to have access to a wider range of information. It is better for individual success to have connections to a variety of networks rather than many connections within a single network.
The power of social network theory stems from its difference from traditional sociological studies, which assume that it is the attributes of individual actors -- whether they are friendly or unfriendly, smart or dumb, etc. -- that matter. Social network theory produces an alternate view, where the attributes of individuals are less important then their relationships and ties with other actors within the network. This approach has turned out to be useful for explaining many real-world phenomenon.
Social network theory in the social sciences began with the field of sociometry , an attempt to quantify social relationships. Scholars such as Mark Granovetter expanded the use of social networks, and they are now used to help explain many different real-life phenomenon in the social sciences. Power within organizations, for example, has been found to come more from the degree to which an individual within a network is at the center of many relationships than actual job title. Social networks also play a key role in hiring, in business success for firms, and in job perofrmance.
Social network theory is an extremely active field within academia. The International Network for Social Network Analysis is an academic association of social network analysts. Many social network tools for scholarly work are available online (like "UCINet") andare relatively easy to use to present graphical images of networks.
The so-called rule of 150 states that the size of a genuine social network is limited to about 150 members. The rule arises from cross-cultural studies in sociology and especially anthropology of the maximum size of a village (in modern parlance most reasonably understood as an ecovillage). It is theorized in evolutionary psychology that the number may be some kind of limit of average human ability to recognize members and track emotional facts about all members of a group. However, it may be due to economics and the need to track " free riders", as larger groups tend to be easier for cheats and liars to prosper in.
Online social networks became a fad in 2003 with the popularity of such websites as Friendster, Tribe.netnet (often shortened to "Tribe") is a website that hosts a online community of friends, similar to Orkut or Friendster. Anyone may register as a new Tribe user, and may then define his or her immediate network of friends, either by choosing from existing and LinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking web site, used mostly for business connections. It has over 1 million registered users. LinkedIn's CEO is Reid Hoffman, the former EVP of PayPal. See also Social network Business network External link .. Their are over 200 social networking sites. Search engine GoogleGoogle is a U. based search engine on the World Wide Web owned by Google Inc. Being the largest search engine on the web, Google receives at least 200 million (2 × 108) search requests per day through its website and client websites, such as AOL. In addit launched orkutorkut is a virtual community designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Similar to Friendster, orkut goes a step further by permitting "communities" of users. It is also invitation-only: Users must be invited to join the on 22 January 20042004 is a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 2004 calendar), and has also been designated the: International Year of Rice International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition Elections are to be held in 73 co. Kibop , a Spanish- and Portuguese-language social network, also debuted in 2004.
In these communities, an initial set of founders sends out messages inviting members of their own personal networks to join the site. New members repeat the process, growing the total number of members and links in the network. Sites then offer features such as automatic address book updates, viewable profiles, the ability to form new links through "introduction services," and other forms of online social connections.
Sites such as LiveJournalLiveJournal (often abbreviated LJ or lj is the name of a website where Internet users can keep a journal or diary, as well as the name of the server software that was designed to run it. It is one of many sites that come under the term blog or weblog., which encourages the interconnection of weblogs, approaches this idea. Further evolution of this idea is the Semantic Social Network, which interconnects both people and weblogs, such as StumbleUpon and Funchain .
Software exists to enable you to set up your own social network, such as Sparta. Social networks can also be organized around business concepts, as for example in the case of Ecademy, ReferNet or Shortcut.
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