Title: The evolution of friendships in Chinese online social networks

Authors: Louis Lei Yu; Valerie King

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, University of Victoria, Engineering/Computer Science Building (ECS), Room 504, P.O. Box 3055, STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, Canada. ' Department of Computer Science, University of Victoria, Engineering/Computer Science Building (ECS), Room 504, P.O. Box 3055, STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, Canada

Abstract: We study the evolution of friendships on Douban, an online social network frequently used by the youth in China. We look at several factors that can affect the evolution of friendships, such as having memberships in the same discussion groups and sharing common interests or common friends. We compare these factors in causing the formation of online friendships. Finally, we determine how Douban users| interests are influenced by their online friends| interests.

Keywords: diffusion modelling; homophily; social influence; online social networks; web structure analysis; China; social computing; online friendships; social network analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSCCPS.2011.044173

International Journal of Social Computing and Cyber-Physical Systems, 2011 Vol.1 No.2, pp.180 - 205

Published online: 21 Feb 2015 *

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