How the online social networks are used: dialogs-based structure of MySpace

Quantitative study of collective dynamics in online social networks is a new challenge based on the abundance of empirical data. Conclusions, however, may depend on factors such as user's psychology profiles and their reasons to use the online contacts. In this study, we have compiled and analysed two datasets from MySpace. The data contain networked dialogues occurring within a specified time depth, high temporal resolution and texts of messages, in which the emotion valence is assessed by using the SentiStrength classifier. Performing a comprehensive analysis, we obtain three groups of results: dynamic topology of the dialogues-based networks have a characteristic structure with Zipf's distribution of communities, low link reciprocity and disassortative correlations. Overlaps supporting ‘weak-ties’ hypothesis are found to follow the laws recently conjectured for online games. Long-range temporal correlations and persistent fluctuations occur in the time series of messages carrying pos...