Social Networks
Let's take a closer look at the social fabric of social media. Each application consists of a social network, a set of socially relevant nodes connected by one or more relations. Nodes are members of the network (e.g., the 600-million-pl Facebook users). Members (whom we also refer to as network units) are connected by their relationships with (or ties to) each other. Relationships are based on various affiliations, such as kinship, friendship and affective ties, shared experiences, and shared hobbies and interests. When we think of community, we tend to think of people, but in principle members of a network can be organizations, articles, countries, departments, or any other definable unit. A good example is your university alumni association The association is a community of networked individuals and organizations. Social networks are sometimes called social graphs, though this term may also refer to a diagram of the interconnections of units in a network.