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Composition and Structure of a Large Online Social Network in the Netherlands

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  • Rense Corten

Abstract

Limitations in data collection have long been an obstacle in research on friendship networks. Most earlier studies use either a sample of ego-networks, or complete network data on a relatively small group (e.g., a single organization). The rise of online social networking services such as Friendster and Facebook, however, provides researchers with opportunities to study friendship networks on a much larger scale. This study uses complete network data from Hyves, a popular online social networking service in the Netherlands, comprising over eight million members and over 400 million online friendship relations. In the first study of its kind for the Netherlands, I examine the structure of this network in terms of the degree distribution, characteristic path length, clustering, and degree assortativity. Results indicate that this network shares features of other large complex networks, but also deviates in other respects. In addition, a comparison with other online social networks shows that these networks show remarkable similarities.

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  • Rense Corten, 2012. "Composition and Structure of a Large Online Social Network in the Netherlands," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(4), pages 1-8, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0034760
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0034760
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    Cited by:

    1. Li, Yuan & Gao, Haoyu & Yang, Mingmin & Guan, Wanqiu & Ma, Haixin & Qian, Weining & Cao, Zhigang & Yang, Xiaoguang, 2015. "What are Chinese talking about in hot weibos?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 419(C), pages 546-557.
    2. Natalia Sánchez-Arrieta & Rafael A. González & Antonio Cañabate & Ferran Sabate, 2021. "Social Capital on Social Networking Sites: A Social Network Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-35, May.
    3. Ai-Xiang Cui & Zi-Ke Zhang & Ming Tang & Pak Ming Hui & Yan Fu, 2012. "Emergence of Scale-Free Close-Knit Friendship Structure in Online Social Networks," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-13, December.

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