Opinion leadersplay important roles in interpersonalcommunication.Marketerscancontact the opinionleadersandreducecostsandimproveoverallcommunicationefficacybycommunicating effectivelywiththem.Thisstudyinvestigatestheopportunityofconsumersbecomingopinionleaders andalsoinvestigatestheeffectsofperceivedriskandshoppingvalueononlineconsumerpurchase...

Recently the use of social network sites have emerged as one of the most important and time-consuming online activities. In the large and diversified social network scenario Facebook emerged as one of the most important sites at least in the United States and in Europe. In the Facebook-based gaming scene Playfish, a UK based company, has recently gained a leading position with more than 50 mill...

Much research has enumerated potential benefits of online social network sites. Given the pervasiveness of these sites and the numbers of people that use them daily, both research and media tend to make the assumption that social network sites have become indispensible to their users. Based on the analysis of qualitative data from users of social network sites in Russia and Kazakhstan, this pap...

Social Network research relies on a variety of data-sources, depending on the problem-scenario and the questions which the research is trying to answer or inform. In this paper, we analyze some of the datasources indexed by the sizes of these data-sets and relating them back to the research question, which the data-set is used for. In carrying out such an exercise, our goal is to assign a confi...

Recently observed social trends point to greater social approximation of individuals through technological platforms, as the increasing success of sites such as Orkut, MySpace, MSN, among others. The mobile social networks are also gaining adepts for having pervasives and customized features. In this demonstration, we show a concept of a mobile social network for students seeking study partners...

Mining data produced by students involved in communication through forum-like tools can help revealing aspects of their communication. In this paper we propose an approach to the construction of models to highlight structural properties of learning groups based on a relational perspective (analysis of chains of references) and the use of Social Network Analysis techniques. These models can be u...

Introduction: Bipolar Spectrum Disorders include a variety of mood disorders from bipolar II disorder to conditions characterized by hyperthymic mood states. It has been suggested that psychosocial factors also play an important role in bipolar disorders, in this study we have used social network analysis in order to better understand the social positions of those affected by bipolar spectrum d...