Identity and Search in Social Networks
Abstract
Social networks have the surprising property of being ``searchable'': Ordinary people are capable of directing messages through their network of acquaintances to reach a specific but distant target person in only a few steps. We present a model that offers an explanation of social network searchability in terms of recognizable personal identities: sets of characteristics measured along a number of social dimensions. Our model defines a class of searchable networks and a method for searching them that may be applicable to many network search problems, including the location of data files in peer-to-peer networks, pages on the World Wide Web, and information in distributed databases.
- Publication:
-
Science
- Pub Date:
- May 2002
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.1070120
- arXiv:
- arXiv:cond-mat/0205383
- Bibcode:
- 2002Sci...296.1302W
- Keywords:
-
- SOCIOLOGY;
- Condensed Matter - Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
- E-Print:
- 4 page, 3 figures, revtex