Social Networking

Abstract

Online social networking services are growing fast in terms of user base and derived services, threatening Google and Apple as technology innovation leaders driving the market growth. The underlying network connectivity of the online SNSs locks in users and offers a solid basis for business expansion. This tutorial will offer an analytical perspective to the underlying structure of online SNSs and cover two specific problems related the SNSs: influential ranking and community detection. This tutorial will be comprised of three parts. The first part will be a brief introduction to complex networks. In the second part we will review user ranking methodologies in SNSs. In the last part we will cover known community detection algorithms and discuss pros and cons. We will wrap up the tutorial with open questions and research directions in the era of online SNSs.