Even as Facebook has embedded itself into modern life, it hasn't done
that much with what it knows about us. Its stash of data looms like an oversize
shadow. Everyone has a feeling that this resource will yield something big, but
nobody knows quite what. [...]
He found that our close friends strongly sway which information we
share, but overall their impact is dwarfed by the collective influence of
numerous more distant contacts—what sociologists call "weak ties." It
is our diverse collection of weak ties that most powerfully determines what
information we're exposed to.
