Information Network or Social Network? The Structure of the Twitter Follow Graph Seth A. Myers, Aneesh Sharma, Pankaj Gupta, and Jimmy Lin Twitter, Inc. @seth_a_myers @aneeshs @pankaj @lintool ABSTRACT In this paper, we provide a characterization of the...
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Information Network or Social Network? The Structure of the Twitter Follow Graph Seth A. Myers, Aneesh Sharma, Pankaj Gupta, and Jimmy Lin Twitter, Inc. @seth_a_myers @aneeshs @pankaj @lintool ABSTRACT In this paper, we provide a characterization of the topologi- cal features of the Twitter follow graph, analyzing properties such as degree distributions, connected components, short- est path lengths, clustering coefficients, and degree assorta- tivity. For each of these properties, we compare and con- trast with available data from other social networks. These analyses provide a set of authoritative statistics that the community can reference. In addition, we use these data to investigate an often-posed question: Is Twitter a social network or an information network? The “follow” relation- ship in Twitter is primarily about information consumption, yet many follows are built on social ties. Not surprisingly, we find that the Twitter follow graph exhibits structural characteristics of b
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