Mike Gotta has an informative post about the long history, beginning in 1853, of social network analysis, the scientific field that studies phenomena like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and all their social networking cousins (originally, believe it or not, not online).
Reminded me of this quote from Alexis de Tocqueville, Chapter 5, Democracy in America, 1835:
The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it is proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association.
We just launched a financial social community that pays its members...I would appreciate your thoughts...
Posted by: Albert Aimers | Saturday, 05 April 2008 at 02:41 AM
Sorry, no advertising here.
Posted by: jessica lipnack | Tuesday, 08 April 2008 at 06:45 PM