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Editor Login


Convener in chief:


David Lazer
(Methodology, Networked Governance)

Editors:


Stanley Wasserman
(Current Trends, Methodology, Social Networks)

Allan Friedman
(Simulations)

Nathan Eagle
(Technology, Social Computing, Powerlaws, Current Trends)

Ben Waber
(Technology, Social Computing)
Thomas Langenberg
(Technology, Social Computing, Social Networks, Current Trends)

Ines Mergel
(Knowledge Sharing, Social Computing, Social Software, Current Trends)

Brian Rubineau
(Social Dynamics, Societal Networks, Simulations)

Maria Binz-Scharf
(Qualitative Methodology, Knowledge Sharing, eGovernment)

Jeff Boase
(Technology, Societal networks)

Alexander Schellong
(Admin, eGovernment, Citizen Relationship Management)

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« Strong ties are those that look for you… | Main | How does the way we process information relate to how we search for it? »

12 February 2007

"networking" for a cause

The proliferation of "social networking" functionality online is striking. A large number of websites, whose primary objective is clearly to support some other goal, now have features that allow "members" to post material and indicate their relationships with others in the community. (This is rather different than more general social networking sites, such as facebook, myspace, etc, whose business models are to get traffic and data on individuals and somehow monetize that.) Presumably the intuition here is that this increases the attachment of individuals to the cause or the product, and helps facilitate (in particular cases) collective action. It would be interesting to rigorously assess whether these features actually have any impact. While I see the logic, I will admit to some scepticism.

Some examples:

The Barack Obama campaign

United Methodists

Toyota hybrid owners

Posted by David Lazer at February 12, 2007 10:20 PM

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