  In the past decade, blogging web sites have become more sophisticated and
influential than ever. Much of this sophistication and influence follows from
their network organization. Blogging social networks (BSNs) allow individual
bloggers to form contact lists, subscribe to other blogs, comment on blog
posts, declare interests, and participate in collective blogs. Thus, a BSN is a
bimodal venue, where users can engage in publishing (post) as well as in social
(make friends) activities. In this paper, we study the co-evolution of both
activities. We observed a significant positive correlation between blogging and
socializing. In addition, we identified a number of user archetypes that
correspond to "mainly bloggers," "mainly socializers," etc. We analyzed a BSN
at the level of individual posts and changes in contact lists and at the level
of trajectories in the friendship-publishing space. Both approaches produced
consistent results: the majority of BSN users are passive readers; publishing
is the dominant active behavior in a BSN; and social activities complement
blogging, rather than compete with it.

Social and Information Networks;Physics and Society