Cultural Differences in Social Media/Networking

The graph below is taken from a paper by Thomas Lento, et al which is currently being presented at WWE2006. It shows a graph of relationships on Microsofts experimental social networking/blogging system (Wallop). Nodes are people/blogs and links are created when a comment is made by one author on another's post. The interesting story here is that the Chinese language bloggers (coloured pink) are far more engaged and interactive on this platform.

Thomas also presented time series which showed the pick up of Chinese language users over time compared with non-Chinese. Wallop is invitation only. After the first Chinese language blogger was invited, Chinese language bloggers quickly dominated the platform.