700 Friends and Drinking Alone

In this New York Times article, Hal Niedzviecki invites all 700 of his Facebook friends to a party. Fifteen people said attending, and sixty said maybe, but only one showed up. Perhaps those weak ties aren't as good for networking as it would seem? I think, though, what this actually means is that just because you're "friends" with someone on a social networking WEBSITE, it doesn't mean you're actually a part of his or her social network.

I do believe these 'weak ties' are useful, I have no problem asking a random person for info about a job or feedback on a class that i may want to take but I wouldn't go as far as invite them to my birthday party. So while my 700 friends on facebook may not actually all be my 'friends' I can still get something out of networking with them.

If you are friends with someone on a social networking site, you ARE part of his or her social network. You are not necessarily part of his or her social LIFE. Consider the Milgram experiment we discussed in class: We need to get a message from a random source to a random destination. The friends the author had that lived in other countries would not show up to a party, but they might make great bridges or local bridges to other parts of the world.