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Scholars, advertisers and political activists see massive online social networks as a representation of social interactions that can be used to study the propagation of ideas, social bond dynamics and viral marketing, among others. But the linked structures of social networks do not reveal actual interactions among people. Scarcity of attention and the daily rhythms of life and work makes people default to interacting with those few that matter and that reciprocate their attention. A study of social interactions within Twitter reveals that the driver of usage is a sparse and hidden network of connections underlying the "declared" set of friends and followers.

"Your friends are turning into virtual friends. That is, they want to advertise their every move and feeling to a presumably rapt and admiring audience but do not want to participate in the give and take of actual friendship."

The business models of social networks could rely on an ignorance towards privacy from their users, experts say. But recent research indicates normal Facebook users have begun altering their privacy settings to control the information people (and potentially advertisers) can see, which could affect the ability of social networks to make money.

From August 2010: "The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday that a California marketing company had settled charges that it engaged in deceptive advertising by having its employees write and post positive reviews of clients' games in the Apple iTunes Store, without disclosing that they were being paid to do so.

Facebook stats 1Q 2008

Some good ideas, and includes code snippets for the tips