UMBC ebiquity » social networks http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger EBB is the ebiquity research group\\\'s blog at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). We focus on technologies that facilitate the design, implementation and control of distributed, intelligent information systems -- mobile and pervasive computing, ad hoc networking, multiagent systems, knowledge representation and reasoning, and the semantic web. As the tides of technology ebb and flow, we hope the good ideas wash up on our beach and the bad ones drift back out to sea. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:50:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Geographic distribution of social networking systems popularity http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2008/08/12/geographic-distribution-of-social-networking-systems-popularity/ http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2008/08/12/geographic-distribution-of-social-networking-systems-popularity/#comments Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:17:25 +0000 Tim Finin http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/?p=1587 Using Google’s Insights for Search, Pingdom has “looked at 12 of the top social networks to answer a simple, but highly interesting question: Where are they the most popular?”. In their post, Social network popularity around the world, they surveyed MySpace, Facebook, Hi5, Friendster, LinkedIn, Orkut, Last.fm, LiveJournal, Xanga, Bebo, Imeem and Twitter. Their technique was simple: search for MySpace and use the “regional interest” estimates. Here are some observations they made:

  • Facebook is most popular in Turkey and Canada.
  • Friendster and Imeem are most popular in the Philippines.
  • LinkedIn is most popular in India.
  • Twitter is most popular in Japan.
  • LiveJournal is more popular in Russia than it is in the United States.
  • Orkut is more popular in Iran (10th country popularity-wise) than it is in the United States.
  • MySpace is the only social network which is most popular in the United States.
  • MySpace, LinkedIn, LiveJournal, Xanga, and Twitter are the only social networks in this survey which have the United States in their top five countries, popularity-wise. That is just five out of twelve.

The technique is simple and somewhat crude, but probably accurate enough for a first order approximation. It also provides data that compliments the data that these systems provide on the geographic distribution of their users.

]]> http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2008/08/12/geographic-distribution-of-social-networking-systems-popularity/feed/ 0 The Psychology of Social Networking on KQED Forum show http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2008/05/16/the-psychology-of-social-networking-on-kqed-forum-show/ http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2008/05/16/the-psychology-of-social-networking-on-kqed-forum-show/#comments Fri, 16 May 2008 15:44:07 +0000 Tim Finin http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2008/05/16/the-psychology-of-social-networking-on-kqed-forum-show/ Akshay Java pointed out an interesting radio program, Psychology of Social Networking, that’s available online for streaming or download.

“Psychologists have long studied social networks, and the growing popularity of sites like MySpace and Facebook provide fertile territory for research. Stanford University even has a class called “Psychology of Facebook.” What do our online profiles say about us?”

The hour long segment was originally broadcast on May 12 on the KQED Forum program. Host Michael Krasny interviewed two guests:

It’s a good show that explores why social networking sites gave become ubiquitous and popular, ow they work, and why they work.

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