title: Identity and search in social networks.
abstract: Social networks have the surprising property of being "searchable": Ordinary people are capable of directing messages through their network of acquaintances to reach a specific but distant target person in only a few steps. We present a model that offers an explanation of social network searchability in terms of recognizable personal identities: sets of characteristics measured along a number of social dimensions. Our model defines a class of searchable networks and a method for searching them that may be applicable to many network search problems, including the location of data files in peer-to-peer networks, pages on the World Wide Web, and information in distributed databases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA. djw24@columbia.edu
authors.forename: Duncan J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Watts
authors.forename: Peter Sheridan
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Dodds
authors.forename: M E J
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Newman
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012929:Psychological Distance; D012944:Social Support