http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/scl/papers/twitter the social network that matters is not the one you declare. attention twitter social networks social media First Monday Scholars, advertisers and political activists see massive online social networks as a representation of social interactions that can be used to study the propagation of ideas, social bond dynamics and viral marketing, among others. But the linked structures of social networks do not reveal actual interactions among people. Scarcity of attention and the daily rhythms of life and work makes people default to interacting with those few that matter and that reciprocate their attention. A study of social interactions within Twitter reveals that the driver of usage is a sparse and hidden network of connections underlying the declared set of friends and followers. Bernardo A. Huberman, Daniel M. Romero and Fang Wu 2008-12-05 15:27:00