The Berners-Lee Hypothesis

Power laws and Group Structure in Flickr

Journal article (2008)

Authors

Andrea Baldassarri Schloss Dagstuhl
Alain Barrat Schloss Dagstuhl
Andrea Cappocci Schloss Dagstuhl
Harry Halpin Schloss Dagstuhl
Ulrike Lehner Schloss Dagstuhl
Jose Ramasco Schloss Dagstuhl
Valentin Robu Schloss Dagstuhl
Dario Taraborelli Schloss Dagstuhl
Research Group
Algorithmics (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
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Published Date

2008

Language

English

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Software Technology

Research Group

Algorithmics

Abstract

An intriguing hypothesis, first suggested by Tim Berners-Lee, is that the structure of online groups should conform to a power law distribution. We relate this hypothesis to earlier work around the Dunbar Number, which is a supposed limit to the number of social contacts a user can have in a group. As preliminary results, we show that the number of contacts of a typical Flickr user, the number of groups a user belongs to, and the size of Flickr groups all follow power law distributions. Furthermore, we find some unexpected differences in the internal structure of public and private Flickr groups. For further research, we further operationalize the Berners-Lee hypothesis to suppose that users with a group membership distribution that follows a power law will produce more content for social Web systems.