Joho the Blog on: Interests, not demographics

It's about communication. You want to build a community? Build it around something to share (a focus) and conversation will emerge from that.

Link: Joho the Blog: Interests, not demographics.

In a Report in the 6 Jan 2006 Science Kossinets and Watts offered an empirical analysis of social network evolution in a large university community.

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The results show that at least in this particular environment, people were more likely to form ties with others when they had a shared "focus" such as a class that brought them together or a mutual acquaintance, but were less likely to interact solely on the basis of shared characteristics such as age or gender.

Gotta get that article.