Always interesting social network guru Valdis Krebs takes a look at his Twitter network, and discovers the emergent communities therein.  We find his analysis agreeable on two levels.  First, the appreciation of informative visualizations over flashy ones is one we share.  And second, the understanding that communities are emergent formations to be discovered, not assumed a priori, is foundational to our analytic approach.

On June 13 , Morningside Chief Scientist John Kelly was a featured panelist at the Networks in Political Science conference at Harvard.  And on June 18th John will be presenting at the Qualities of Old and New Democracies conference in Budapest.

Writing in the Washington Post Rob Stein takes a refreshing look at how real world social connections affect individuals’ decisions.   We at Morningside are fond of saying that the preconceived categories (e.g. age 18-25; income between $50,000 and $75,000; “likely voter”) that drive traditional marketing and campaign management fail to take into account the impact of interpersonal and less direct social influences that inform decisions.  Our approach goes against the grain, and is often not well-received among practitioners of traditional media research.   But it works.  Thanks Rob!

Connoisseurs of international blogging will know Ethan Zuckerman’s popular Blog “My Heart’s in Accra.” Zuckerman, whose founder credits include Tripod, Geekcorps and Global Voices, is a fellow at the Berkman Center where John is applying some of our techniques to compare how bloggers of different nationalities or who write in different languages cluster differently around the world. We’re grateful to Ethan for posting a summary of John’s main presentation last month at Berkman’s Media Re:public conference at USC Annenberg School for Communication.

The Sunday NY Times spotlights research on Iranian blogs and bloggers that MA’s Chief Scientist John Kelly is working on with Harvard’s Berkman Center–using our unique tools and methods, of course. One interesting finding: after politics and religion, what is the most blogged about topic among Iranian bloggers? Romantic poetry! If you have a little more time, pour yourself a cup of coffee and read the whole study.

John Kelly spoke last week with the BBC’s Rhod Sharp about M.A.’s methodology for examining the global Blogosphere, and some of our more intriguing insights. The original broadcast is now available as a PodCast from the BBC. If you are in a hurry, you can fast forward to John’s segment at about the halfway mark of the podcast, but we recommend listening to the program in its entirety.