[8] SNS: physics or sociology ?

We did not expect Facebook to study how messages are spread in a social network, but the emergence of social media stimulates the past ten years of extensive research.
Even before the advent of the Internet, social networks have attracted the attention of sociologists and the result was expressed in the form of two important ideas and the development of many analysis tools. The first idea is that the density of a network affects the transmission speed of information but also promotes uniformity of opinion. The networks are dense networks where the links are strong, those of family and those of the clan. The second is that the value of a position in the networks just what lies at the intersection of several links which are connected by weaker links. Ronald Burt and Grannoveter are among those who developed these ideas in the 80s and 90s.
A major change appeared in the late 90s particularly embodied by a physicist, Barabasi, with the essential idea that the topology of large networks, such as the Internet plays a vital role in their dynamic growth and dissemination. This topology is characterized by distribution of the number of links available to each node in the network, Barabasi proposal is that Internet networks respond to a power law characterized by properties of preferential attachment. The rich are getting richer faster than the poor richer. The question of large networks is now a matter physicists (visit http://arxiv.org/list/physics.soc-ph/recent) methods by which simulation of particle fields attempt to understand how a message can be spread in a network in view of its structure.
In this course, an important contribution is that of Duncan Watts, who demonstrates that strategies targeting opinion leaders do not lead, or rarely, to phenomena of Buzz. In almost paradoxical, he said that communication within networks requires the tactics of mass communication. That will delight the traditional agencies and irritate specialists Buzz.
The nature of the links is one thing, another topology, but this does not exhaust the subject, an issue today relates to the actual mechanisms of transmission. It is without doubt the contribution of epidemiology. The innovation of Facebook does not lie in the idea of connecting with friends, in France as a site before Buddy brought this idea before, and on a global scale makes his MySpace success factor. The key is is the availability of gadgets and the quality of their ergonomics. These small applications that can provide one-click an object plays a particular role. The characteristic of social networking sites is that they convey not only ideas and opinions, but objects.
If Twitter asks him another challenge to knowledge. Its strength lies particularly in the eco-system it creates. Twitdeck, Twitpic, Twitdom, a community of applications itself into a network over the network's own twitter. Several levels of networks, networks of networks. The problem is that a number of sociologists are exploring, including Emmanuel Lazega with the idea of design link. Sociologists would resume it on hand physicists to understand the nature of networks?
In all cases, it is clear that mastery of social networking sites through the assimilation of an impressive amount of knowledge produced in various fields ranging from sociology to physics, from epidemiology and the role of marketing specialists is to put these achievements in order to think better communication strategies on these new media. This is an important issue that must answer three main questions.
Should foster communication focused on opinion leaders or to create a mass phenomenon spread?
Does the content of their messages or transmission mechanisms that are crucial in spreading?
How to manage the hierarchy of networks?
by : i-marketing