A social network caught in the Web

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We present an analysis of Club Nexus, an online
community at Stanford University. Through the Nexus site we were
able to study a reflection of the real world community structure
within the student body. We observed and measured social network
phenomena such as the small world effect, clustering, and the
strength of weak ties. Using the rich profile data provided by the
users we were able to deduce the attributes contributing to the
formation of friendships, and to determine how the similarity of
users decays as the distance between them in the network increases.
In addition, we found correlations between users’ personalities and
their other attributes, as well as interesting correspondences
between how users perceive themselves and how they are perceived by
others.”