Social networks (Twitter)

We all use social networks day in and day out. There are numerous social networks catering to all sorts of ideologies and philosophies, but Facebook and Twitter (barring a couple more) have become synonymous with the term social network itself. These two social networks enjoy popularity not only because of their uniqueness and the quality of service but because of the way they enable us to interact in a very intuitive way. As we saw with recommendation engines used in e-commerce websites (see Chapter 4, Building a Product Recommendation System), social networks have existed long before Facebook, Twitter, or even the Internet.

Social networks have interested scientists and mathematicians alike. It is an interdisciplinary topic which spans but is not limited to sociology, psychology, biology, economics, communication studies, and information science. Various theories have been developed to analyze social networks and their impact on human lives in the form of factors...