Book Review: Linked by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
Are you on MySpace? Are you old school and have a Friendster account? Do you remember the website Six Degrees? My friend Noah Brier lent me this book in New York and I was surprised I never heard about it before. I would say this book laid the foundation for all research on social networks.
This book really is the foundation for tipping point and all social networks today. However, the book is a bit repetitive and overly technical in some places. Some highlights from the book include:
- The real history of how the theory of 6 degrees of separation began.
- How the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon game started.
- How computer viruses spread and how Mafiaboy used networks to take down Yahoo!, eBay and Amazon.
- The success of hubs and nodes and how people like Vernon Jordan became ‘networked’.
- Power laws, Metcalfe’s law and other ways to track growth of networks.
Noah’s Recommendation: Don’t buy it. Read the reviews at Amazon to get a sense of the book. If you really want to know the history behind 6 degrees of separation and networks in general then you should read it.
You should check out my Okdork Virgin Guide to get started.
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Thanks again for dropping by and I hope to see you soon! - Noah
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Noah Kagan wrote Book Review: Linked by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi on November 9th, 2006 and there are 3 comments. There will be one more after you add yours, though. Read more posts by Noah Kagan.
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3 Responses to “Book Review: Linked by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi”
November 9th, 2006
1:44 pm
Glad you enjoyed it, can I have it back now.
November 9th, 2006
6:24 pm
An interesting read for its professional business and technology implications.
December 4th, 2006
5:50 am
i must say your website’s getting more and more engaging. I haven been back in a month and i am guilty of it, i know. ;P but i read till this far and what i want to say is i read the book linked as part of my thesis.
Its really good for the academically inclined to get clued in on networks but the only good part is probably about 2-3 chapters in the middle right after barabasi started talking about scale-free networks after the erdos and renyi section and before he started talking about the technical details of his work…
i had some new ideas on structuring networks for personal networking and online user interaction after reading such heavy stuff so it might be useful for those who want a fresh perspective on social networks..
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