Exploring social dynamics in online media sharing

Abstract

It is now feasible to view media at home as easily as text-based pages were viewed when the World Wide Web (WWW) first emerged. This development has supported media sharing and search services providing hosting, indexing and access to large, online media repositories. Many of these sharing services also have a social aspect to them. This paper provides an initial analysis of the social interactions on a video sharing and search service (www.youtube.com). Results show that many users do not form social networks in the online community and a very small number do not appear to contribute to the wider community. However, it does seem those people who do use the available tools have much a greater tendency to form social connections.