  urlLink Jim Moore's cybernetics, politics, emergence, etc. : Home Page : "We can best connect to other social worlds through the social shortcuts of weak ties, by which we engage folks that are not necessarily that close to us initially--e.g.
Uncle Albert, or an old high school friend, or someone we know at work, at the dry cleaners, or where we have our car repaired. These bridge persons may not be that emotionally close to the people we hope to reach on the other end of the connection, either--but the value of bridging is that the relationship may be just strong enough, as a social tie, to spread an idea or enable a new connection for action.
Blogs have a special social relevance because they allow their bloggers to create and maintain a network of weak social ties. The network of weak ties that a blogger can sustain is open to all comers, and is potentially vast and highly diverse (as diverse as the web itself--which of couse is not diverse enough, but is more diverse than, say, academic journals). Blogs are weak tie machines! Anyone (you! ) can read my blog. " 
