A Comparison of On and Offline Networks through the Facebook API

Early methodological work using the Facebook API to extract and compare egocentric network structures, demonstrating that online friendship networks, while larger, exhibit structural properties (clustering, density) that meaningfully correspond to offline social organization. Establishes the viability of platform APIs as tools for social network research.

Compares the structural properties of online and offline ego networks, demonstrating meaningful correspondence in clustering and density. The finding that online networks are not structurally random but reflect offline social organization validates online network data as a legitimate epistemological source for understanding real social structure.