Characteristics of opinion
leaders in Second Life
Aleks Krotoski
University of Surrey

Background
ψ
Social
searching Virtual community
Cyber-
Tagging
celebrity
Blogging
Social Marketing

Questions
• How does interpersonal diffusion work in a
social virtual world?
– What are the characteristics of the network?
– What are the characteristics of opinion leaders
in this virtual world?

How?
• Social network analysis: mapping the
connections between people in a social
environment
– Rogers’ communication network analysis
• Focus on closeness, normative behaviours,
opinion leadership
• Asking personal questions:
– Who are your friends?
– What do you think about them?

Ne tw o rk N = 6767
No t huge ly de nse : the re
are still co mpo ne nts
N = 750 o f the ne tw o rk w hich are
unco nne cte d to o ne ano the r
Ave rage be tw e e n re achable
frie nds = 5.81
Lo nge st distance be tw e e n
tw o pe o ple in the
ne tw o rk = 16
Ave rage numbe r
o f frie nds = 7

A note on the results on next few
slides
Partial network: ego-centric data collection
In-degrees: Who’s the Most “Popular”?

What’s it look like?

Opinion Leader demographics
• Older (both in real life and in-
world)
– Above average age of 33.7
years
– All but one is has been
resident for more than one
year
• Spend more time than average
per week (> 9 hours)
• 58% female
• Little gender-bending activity
• 83% from the USA*
• As sexually active
• Less likely to have experienced
a breach of personal privacy
• As likely to have been a scam

Psychological Relationships
• (Multi-level modelling)
• Positive relationship between opinion
leadership/popularity and:
– Perceived trustworthiness
– Perceived credibility
– Perceived prototypicality
– Recipient of social comparison

Summary
• The people who have the most social
impact in the virtual world (using opinion
leader models) are remarkably
homogenous
• One national culture dominates
• There’s a surprisingly small and
interconnected cohort of people who
dominate diffusion in the virtual world
(Feted Inner Core?)

Future work
• Partial network analysis means that in-degrees
emphasise “popularity” rather than actual opinion
leadership
• Dissecting the relationships between
psychological characteristics and network
characteristics
• Whole network: follow the diffusion of voice
through the networks of the virtual world
– If one is meant to be more self-aware while online
(Spears et al), what role do friends/groups play in the
adoption of innovations in this space?
– What does social psychology contribute to the
diffusion of innovations within a social network?

Thank you
A.Krotoski@surrey.ac.uk
www.toastkid.com
Social Simulation Research Lab
(Hyperborea)