When first entering my dive into social software and social networks (e.g. friendster) I thought a barrier to entry in the global market would be intrinsic social capital abroad. The high social capital found within the immediate family and community would preclude a need to go online and risk damaging existent ties. I would think that compromising time spent with your strong ties for time spent on weak ties when starting off on Friendster might insult and damage your strong ties.
Without sounding like a 9th grade essay there seems to be more of need for branching out and creating social capital on a weak tie to strong tie development path in Uk and North American culture. This due to cultural norms fostering independence where you have kids debating whether they should miss holiday family dinners to attend the game with their buddies.
All this being said it surprised me to see in Danah Boyd's paper on "Friendster and Publicly Articulated Social Networks" that most of the 1/3 accounts she had access to for her study on Friendster were predominantlhy in Asia. I would like to see or hear of some statistics that support this information and substantiate a claim that supports my initial view or that indicated in Danah's paper.
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