is the world really that small?

reading up on Kadushin's article posted on blackboard it was interesting to see how small the world is. the eye catching beginning to a paragraph which said "If there were no overlap in people’s personal networks, then one could reach the entire population of the
United States in two or three steps. (Pool and Kochen 1978). " I was frankly frightened by that fact, but in reality, in contrast, the world is huge. Last class i'm sure everybody remembers using that Small World Project website hosted by Columbia University in NYC and let me tell you something....this ain't no small world. As my people to connect to I had some 60 year old lady living in the United States Virgin Islands....I think the closes i came was being in the U.S.V.I. on a cruise a couple years back, other than that I couldn't think of a single person who I actually knew firsthand who might actually be connected to Agnes out in the U.S.V.I..

Still think the world is small? Consider this -- over 6,000 people PER DAY die in car accidents in the United States alone. If the world was that small, then I figure myself or a friend would know at least one of these people....but NO, no sign of connection or poor friends or family that died today in a car accident.

As I was reading the article on blackboard I also found an article in my defense which states how the world isn't too small after all from an IT perspective! Better yet- this article came from an IT Blog called ITToolbox --- Check it out here!

though this was a short post I feel as if reading the article linked above will give everybody the other side of the Small World argument. And if it fails to counter the argument posed in the reading as well as the small world project then it does provide some interesting reading material from an IT sense. Please feel free to respond to this post and the linked article I thought might be interesting especially for all you business majors out there!

blogs never sieze to amaze me....

ok. well i sat down to write this blog post after reading the selected chapters in "The Hidden Power of Social Networks" and "Smart Mobs". In between reading the chapters and actually writing in this blog I went on to one of the social networks/blogs that I read on a daily basis. For privacy purposes I won't disclose this particular blog at the current time. However, I was reading posted articles from today and I came across an article entitled "Seattle dealership rips off disabled man." While reading the headline I was thinking about a girl I dated last year from AU whose father owned a few dealerships in the Seattle area....low and behold. It was a dealership that her father was part-owner of. On the blog entry I was reading was an link to a Seattle newspaper with a picture of her parents on it. CRAZY. I will now go into the importance and effectiveness of social networking however, I thought this might be a rather relevant story to share with the class while on the topic of social connection through blogs and networks. Clearly, this exemplified the 6 Degrees of Separation topic of our class and how strange it is that I found this on a blog I read which practically quotes a girl whom has now transferred but I was dating only a year ago.

...Now on to some intelligent discussion:

From reading the chapters assigned for class I pulled a few major point which really struck me as important and the true reasons why I personally love to read blogs which interest and pertain to me (like the one listed (or rather unlisted) above). Since I've already started off this blog entry on a personal note -- for the day, i'll keep it that way.

A quote from "The Hidden Power of Social Networks" states that "engineers and scientists were roughly five times as likely to turn to a personal for information as to an impersonal source such as a database or a file cabinet..."

This is 100% true. The reason I read blogs is because I read the ones that interest me, and it serves as a newspaper which only focuses on one of the things I love -- such as cars. Sure, I can read the NY Times, or the Washington Post, but if I love cars, how many articles are going to talk about cars directly 1? 2 if i'm lucky? The beauty of social networks and blogs is that they are so personalized that reading a car blog for me is like a NY Times without the stuff I don't care about like....politics, the price of houses in Bobsville, Missouri...a State Rep who used state funds to buy a cottage... Hope that wasn't too ignorant of a comment. It all boils down to the availability of specialized knowledge and information which can only be found online through blogs and social networks, the NY Times or Washington Post is great if want to know what's going on in politics or global warming for the day, but if I want the latest information on technology or cars I turn to the social world online. For such reasons above, social networks and the opportunity to be anonymous are great ways to find specialized information about virtually anything you want to know...anything you're trying to do....or anything you want to discuss.

If anybody has any feedback on this -- feel free to respond.

Hey!
I am a student at American University this will be an IT blog which will deal with discussion about technology and the way it really molds social interaction and networking. This is partially for a class and also for communication and interactive discussion.

"On my honor, all of these posts are my own."