How to search social networks

This 2004 article from HP Labs explores how people go about finding the shortest paths between themselves and people they want or need to contact. It proposes a "small world experiment" to see how people find each other. Within an organization, using information about the targeted contact proved worthwhile. In an online community, information about the contact was still useful, but less so.

The way of defining contacts using email was quite intriguing to me. The way that they defined a social contact was one in which they have exchanged 6 emails or more with in a matter of 3 months. Now maybe it’s because this article was written in 2004, or maybe I just don’t use email enough, but I don’t think that I email anybody except for maybe my parents more than 6 times in a 3 month period. A more fitting measure of social contact for me would be the same experiment, however using text messaging instead of email. I feel like tracking the people I text on a regular basis would define my social contacts much better.