Lecture 6 - Social Graphs

This week, we were given insights into how network analysis is done on social networking sites.  We all logged into our LinkedIn accounts and created InMaps.  Apparently, this was one of those things which we were not aware of, before this class.

So, what is an InMap??
As the name says, it is nothing but a map which is used to convey some information.  It is just a visual representation of your social network. But, little did we know about the process behind these inmaps until our Professor briefed it to us. This process is called NETWORK ANALYSIS, the results of which are portrayed as InMaps (on LinkedIn). These InMaps have different nodes and connections between them. These nodes are different people that a user is connected to and the connections between them are based on the interaction between people.

So, this is what LinkedIn uses as its social graph. Different social graphs are available now and each one has a different way of portraying information.  Our Professor also asked us one interesting question in class – How would it be if Twitter had a social graph like LinkedIn? Many students came up with different ideas and we had an interesting discussion.

When I was returning home after the class, I was wondering how a Facebook social graph would look like. I have never seen a graph like that on Facebook. However, I have seen InMaps on LinkedIn and I know how these graphs are made. So, I sat in a corner of the house and started pondering about different ways of representing Facebook data.

As we all know, Facebook has a lotta different things unlike twitter/LinkedIn.  In InMaps, the nodes represented people/users of LinkedIn. But, when it comes to Facebook, you can have different types of nodes.  One for the users, other for the groups and another for the pages.

When you have fixed the nodes, next task is to determine the connections between them.  You can use one or more parameters to do this. The most common way of doing it is by determining the frequency of comments posted between the two nodes. Another alternative is, using the number of ‘like’s.

Let nodes for users be represented by a small circle, nodes for groups be represented by a square and pages can be represented by a small diamond. We can all now start visualizing the maps.

You would be connected to all of your friends, apparently. And you would also see connections from your node to the groups (represented by squares) which you are a part of. Some groups can also have some of your friends as its members. So, the connection goes from your node to the group node and then to your friend’s node.

Remember, you and your friend are connected by another connection, too! But, there can never exist a connection between two groups!

Connections for Pages can be represented in the same way as Groups.

Facebook has tons and tons of data and a lot of different dimensions or features. You can come up with different ways to represent those data or information. What I have discussed here is purely my imagination and your views or opinions are most welcome!