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AIM Meets Social Network Theory

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the diagram-fever dept.

dan moore writes "A student at Caltech has created a website (BuddyZoo.com) that tracks cliques within groups of peoples' buddylists. It also measures buddy popularity and allows you to do a six-degrees type search for other screen names. An interesting approach to social network theory."

4 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. Buddy collecting by Negatyfus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sheez, some people collect IM buddies as a sport. You'd think someone has no real friends in life with 373 buddies in his contact list.

  2. Buddies by nigel.selke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't actually get it. I think instant messaging is great, but only for business purposes (communicating with other branches, overseas contacts, etc).

    To me, a buddies are people that you go to pubs with, go to cricket matches with, etc. I'll never be online after work hours or on the weekends, those time should be reserved for outdoor pursuits or social pursuits. There's nothing like doing 4x4 trails on the weekend, especially in Southern Africa. Or going horse-riding, playing golf, etc. Come on, guys.

    I don't know. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I don't think sitting on PCs for hours a day chatting with MSN/AIM/Yahoo buddies is healthy. The USA is an amazing country with plenty of things to do. Go and check them out. That goes for people in other countries as well - there's more for you to do than just sit on your PC. There's a wealth of recreational activities in any given country that's waiting to be explored. Heck, one of the programmers at work used to be like that, sitting on his PC for hours a day playing games or chatting. We've converted him to an outdoor man by going camping, sky-diving and horse-riding. Now he seems a lot more relaxed and has a wider social circle of people - In real life!

    --

    We hang the petty thieves, but appoint the great ones to public office. - Aesop

    1. Re:Buddies by Negatyfus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's still nice to be able to keep contact with someone you'd normally not be able to communicate with without working up an amazing phonebill. You know, like someone living on another continent. That doesn't mean you have to chat whole days (and nights) with them, though. Besides that, you can easily multi-task between instant messaging and some other, more useful computer task. Furthermore, a group chat can be useful for quickly discussing some matter, such as which pub you and your friends will be going to tonight. Finally, instant messaging can lower the threshold for some people in some situations that are too shy in real life (not that this isn't a problem that should be addressed in real life).

      There are some good uses to instant messaging. However, you can certainly get by without it. I truly hate the way instant messaging and technologies such as SMS seems to affect today's youth with the Trash-talk virus: thye wil b typin liek this til u lose ur mind and don't even see a problem with it.

  3. ironic by scubacuda · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I find it ironic that some of the same people who'd normally have a shit fit over their personal information being centralized (TIA, etc.) actually *volunteer* to disclose their buddy lists (not to mention make it *accessible* to the general public)...