EXPANDING A SOCIAL NETWORK BY THE ACTION OF A SINGLE USER

摘要

Techniques for creating a social network are provided. Private relationships that are established (e.g., in the context of instant messaging) may become public by the action of a single user. Each user determines whether they want to be "social" to (or discoverable by) friends of the user's friends. For example, user A is a friend of (i.e., has established a relationship with) user B and user B is a friend of user C, but user A and user C are not friends of each other (i.e., user A and user C have not established a relationship with each other). If user C unilaterally takes an action, then user A is able to see that user C is a friend of user B. User A may then take further actions to attempt to establish a relationship with user C or otherwise contact user C.