[read_wharf]

My conjecture on top of the general value of a more connected network.

What is Facebook's motivation for connecting people? Or Google's? Or LinkedIn's.

A newspaper sold millions of individual pairs of eyeballs to advertisers. I would think the large numbers of correlations available in a largely connected network would be much more valuable than unconnectable individuals.

[dirtyaura]

But stronger ties could be more "sticky", i.e. it's harder to leave Facebook than Twitter because people (in general) have stronger ties to people they are connected in Facebook than in Twitter. Thus, life-time value of a stronger tie for the service provider is larger. This seems common sense, but I'm interested in if there's any kind of data what the ratio is. Inside a single service, of course, as values are not directly comparable over the services due to different business models)