Information Research Weblog

Social network theory seems to me to be one of those techniques that simply reports the obvious: however, if you are into that kind of thing you might be interested in a site, Buddy Zoo, that applies the ideas to 'buddy lists' in instant messaging systems. You have to have an AOL Instant Messaging user-name to sign up to see the information - and I couldn't be bothered to do that, since I get enough stuff by other means already. Still, the maps on the top page look pretty enough - according to Slashdot the site was created by a student at Caltech, and I imagine that students are among the prime users of IM.