If you hover over it, some of those questions are answered.
For the larger names at least, each name is a link to the blog in question. When the person in question has gotten a MindMap as well, it instead becomes a link to their MindMap. That's what the brackets indicate.
I think proximity and font size pretty much mean the same thing, except that it's easier to have everyone be the right font size than to get everyone in the right place. It has to do with how interlocked people's journals are. If you've seen the "clique-finder" tools out there they identify the same thing this starts with--a bunch of people who all have each other mutually friended. That's roughly the people who are all larger font and close to me on the Map.
no subject
For the larger names at least, each name is a link to the blog in question. When the person in question has gotten a MindMap as well, it instead becomes a link to their MindMap. That's what the brackets indicate.
I think proximity and font size pretty much mean the same thing, except that it's easier to have everyone be the right font size than to get everyone in the right place. It has to do with how interlocked people's journals are. If you've seen the "clique-finder" tools out there they identify the same thing this starts with--a bunch of people who all have each other mutually friended. That's roughly the people who are all larger font and close to me on the Map.
Or, read http://www.livejournal.com/community/weblogsociology/1788.html for a bit more of an explanation.