Steve Lohr, writing for the New York Times:
Their key finding was that the total number of mutual friends two people share — embeddedness, in social networking terms — is actually a fairly weak indicator of romantic relationships. Far better, they found, was a network measure that they call dispersion.
This yardstick measures mutual friends, but also friends from the further-flung reaches of a person’s network neighborhood. High dispersion occurs when a couple’s mutual friends are not well connected to one another.
Imagine Facebook’s version of the much-maligned Microsoft Office paperclip: “It looks like your relationship may be over within the next two months. Can I help you find a new partner?”
Creeptastic.