Online Social Networks

Dr. Valerio Arnaboldi Ph.D is currently a Researcher in the field of social networks analysis with the Ubiquitous Internet group of the Institute for Informatics and Telematics (IIT) of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR). Previously, he worked as a visiting Ph.D. student at the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group at the University of Oxford (UK), under the supervision of Prof. Robin I.M. Dunbar. His research interests include social network analysis, social relationships modeling and context- and social-based services for networking solutions on mobile platforms. Dr. Andrea Passarella Ph.D is currently a Researcher at the Institute for Informatics and Telematics (IIT) of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR). He has published 100+ papers on Online and Mobile social networks, opportunistic, ad hoc and sensor networks, receiving the best paper award at IFIP Networking 2011 and IEEE WoWMoM 2013. He was Guest Co-Editor of several special sections in ACM and Elsevier Journals and of the book “Multi-hop Ad hoc Networks: From Theory to Reality” (2007). Dr. Marco Conti is a Research Director of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). He has published in journals and conference proceedings more than 300 research papers (related to design, modelling, and performance evaluation of computer network, pervasive systems and social networks. He is Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier Computer Communications journal and Associate Editor in-Chief of Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing journal. He received the Best Paper Award at IFIP TC6 Networking 2011, IEEE ISCC 2012 and IEEE WoWMoM 2013 He co-authored the book “Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) (Wiley 2004) and “Mobile Ad hoc networking: the cutting edge technologies”, (IEEE-Wiley 2013). Dr. Robin Dunbar is currently Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College. He is a Fellow of the British Academy. His principal research area focuses on the evolution of sociality. His current project funded by the ERC focus on the mechanisms of social cohesion. He has authored over 15 books including; The Trouble with Science (Harvard University Press) and Thinking Big: How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind (Thames) and over 300 research articles.

"This book is a must for anyone seriously interested in the role that Online Social Networks (OSN) play in human society. It shows that, surprisingly, OSNs are much the same as physical social networks and that despite all the hype about OSNs changing the world, they are mostly just more of what we've always had. Finally, this book points the way towards building a real OSN revolution, built by using OSNs to build a deeper understanding of human social nature." --Sandy Pentland, Media Lab, MIT, USA"In this new book about Online Social Networks, the authors discuss the way that the social brain places limits on how we express and use relationships on Twitter and Facebook. Through the analysis of the users' personal ego networks, the book shows how cognitive constraints are visible in the emergent properties of the graph of OSNs.As with the real world, so with cyberspace. We can only deal with just so-many "friends", and we can only follow just-so many threads. Of course, the narrow characterization of links as friends hides the actual strength of the graph-edge: it can be something that is oft-used, or a rarely trod track; a node at either end may be core to a cluster or peripheral; things change over time. I want to say "cogito ego sum", but better I refer the reader to the analysis of the structural properties of OSNs in this very useful and timely book." --Jon Crowcroft, Computer Lab, University of Cambridge, UK"Since its birth in the mid 90’s, Dunbar’s hypothesis on the limits of human brain to support active social relations –150 at most – has fostered wide interest and debate. Now, teaming with computer scientists Arnaboldi, Conti and Passarella from the Italian National Research Council, the British anthropologist provides further quantitative evidence to his theory. Based on big network data from Facebook and Twitter, the authors explore the structure and mechanics of ego networks – the web of social contacts surrounding each individual person – discovering that the patterns predicted by Dunbar’s theory are in fact existing in the social networks that we humans re-created online. An influential result, which reveals the microscopic structure of society. Deep, stimulating, vivid. This book is an intellectual delight." --Dino Pedreschi, KDD Lab, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Pisa, Italy

• 1. Introductiona. Cyber-Physical World convergenceb. Ego networks analysis and the social brain hypothesisc. Aim of the bookd. Main findings3. Human Social Networks and ego networksa. Fundamental properties of social networksb. The importance of tie strengthc. Ego networks4. Analysis of of ego networks in online social networksa. Datasets descriptionb. Modelling tie strength and social networks through onlinecommunication datac. Structural properties of online ego networksd. Dynamics of ego networks and personal social relationships online5. Applying structural knowledge to Online Social Networking services6. Conclusion