PhysOrg.com reports that a University of Leicester psychologist has produced the first ever ‘world map of happiness’ by performing a meta-analysis of over 100 different studies covering 80,000 subjects worldwide. The study also correlated the data to other indicators, with the top three being (in order): health, wealth and education.
Some other interesting findings:

4 of the Read More...

On Thursday, August 3, I’ll be doing a web seminar entitled The Virtual Handshake: 10 Simple Steps to Radically Improve Your Business Network Online. The event is being put on by ExecuNet, a network of $100K+ executives for executive jobs and career development, but is open to the public.
This 90-minute, web-based program will show you Read More...

According to the NY Times:
The amount of Internet buzz a movie generates is a strong predictor of its box-office take. But it hardly matters whether that buzz is good or bad, according to a study by Yong Liu, an assistant professor of marketing at the Eller College of Business at the University of Arizona.
I’d love Read More...

HBS Professor Andrei Hagiu is an expert on multi-sided markets, and recently interviewed me on that topic: Market Platform Dynamics–Catalyst Conversation: Conversation with David Teten. His site requires that you submit an email address to read the article (but I should note that he doesn’t actually test if the email address is functional.)

The SOCNET mailing list has had some traffic about using social network analysis for Mideast politics. Valdis Krebs is experimenting with attracting and repelling forces between nodes:
http://www.orgnet.com/mideast.html
has an interesting graph.
Ilan Talmud wrote:
On a structural approach to negative and positive relations and its effect of Interstate militarized conflict see :
Papers:
Zeev Maoz 2006. Read More...

PC Magazine has a lengthy piece about how businesspeople are using social networking technologies. Topics include:
MySpace Nation
Introduction
Sweeping the Country
Geocities Revisited
How They Work
We All Need to Be Loved
Clicks Aren’t Just for Kids
Bringing the Family Online
What the Future Holds
The State of MySpace
Market Share of Visits to Social-Networking Sites
Page Views Per Read More...

I wrote last week about the initial findings of the survey on transactional trust in social commerce (eBay and other online auctions; craigslist and other classifieds; social networking, et al.) that I did for Rapleaf. Today we’re releasing the full findings:
Transactional Trust in Social Commerce(PDF, 13 pages, 113K – Right-click and Save Link As or Read More...

Anjali Athavaley of The Wall Street Journal writes on Getting the Scoop on a Future Boss:
There are now more ways to get the inside scoop about an employer — before you are hired.
In the latest expansion of the Web phenomenon of social networking, more sites are launching features that make it easier for job seekers Read More...

The Wharton newsletter reports:
“With the recent disclosure of wiretapping by the National Security Agency and the booming success of sites like MySpace and Friendster, social networking is much in the news today. But serious interest in social networks can also be found among academics, consultants and corporations seeking to deepen their knowledge of how companies Read More...

My focus is normally on how people build trust over the course of virtual relationships, but the fact of the matter is that millions of transactions occur online every day between complete strangers, initiated through sites like craigslist, Elance, and dozens of other online auctions, classifieds, social networking sites, and so on. It’s one thing Read More...