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Most studies on tie strength have focused on its definition, calculation and applications, but have not paid much attention to how tie strength can help analyse online social networks. Because ties play different roles in a network depending on their strength, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between tie strength and network behaviours.

The authors propose a simple metric for tie strength measurement and then apply it to an online social network extracted from a blog network. These networks are massive in size and have technology for efficient data collection, thereby presenting the possibility of measuring tie strength objectively. From the results several key social network properties are studied to see how tie strength may be used as a metric to explain certain characteristics in social networks.

The online networks exhibit all the structural properties of an actual social network, not only in following the power law but also with regard to the distribution of tie strength. The authors noted a strong association between tie strength and reciprocity, and tie strength and transitivity in online social networks.

This paper highlights the importance of analysing online social networks from a tie strength perspective. The results have important implications for the development of efficient search mechanisms and appropriate group leaders in virtual communities.