Analyzing the Facebook Friendship Graph

TL;DR

This paper analyzes Facebook's friendship network to understand the distribution of relationships and compare online social structures with real-life networks using Social Network Analysis tools.

Contribution

It provides an initial analysis of Facebook's social graph, applying SNA tools to uncover patterns and similarities with real-world social networks.

Findings

Distribution patterns of Facebook friendships analyzed

Identification of structural similarities with real-world networks

Preliminary insights into online social connectivity

Abstract

Online Social Networks (OSN) during last years acquired a huge and increasing popularity as one of the most important emerging Web phenomena, deeply modifying the behavior of users and contributing to build a solid substrate of connections and relationships among people using the Web. In this preliminary work paper, our purpose is to analyze Facebook, considering a significant sample of data reflecting relationships among subscribed users. Our goal is to extract, from this platform, relevant information about the distribution of these relations and exploit tools and algorithms provided by the Social Network Analysis (SNA) to discover and, possibly, understand underlying similarities between the developing of OSN and real-life social networks.