Monday, October 23, 2006

The Mathematics of Friendster

I have 120 friends on Friendster. I've always thought this was a pathetic number, with other people's lists breaking the 200 level easily and frequently.

But then I noticed the number of my "second degree" Friendsters: 4,348.

Assuming each of my 120 friends had their own 120 Friends (even counting overlap), I'd be looking at 14,400 second degree friends. Instead I have 4,348 (and only God know how many of those are fictional, diffrent profiles of the same person, etc.).

Divide 4,348 by 120 and you get 36.2; the average number of friends my friends have. I therefore have 330% more friends than my friends do.

Look who's Ms. Popular all of a sudden.

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