New Social-Network Mapping Tools Compared

Roland Piquepaille writes "There are many new visualization tools around us which try to map our social networks. In this column, I examined Inflow, a datamining tool digging through your email repository to discover and find trends to know more about your networks. Here is a quote: "Assuming you have a significant amount of e-mail traffic, the software will create a remarkably sophisticated assessment of your various social groups, showing you not only their relative size but also the interactions between different groups." I also peeked at TouchGraph GoogleBrowser, which uses Amazon or Google Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to visually describe how books and Web sites connect with one another. Finally, I took a look at a brand new way of visualizing Google search results, from anacubis. If you know about other similar new tools, please tell me and I'll gather your comments in a future story."

Interestingly

[Anonymous Coward]

Due to the high number of links to such sites within, Slashdot is incredibly close to sites such as goatse.cx and tubgirl.

Spammers?

[eric434]

OK, so if I run that on my email inbox, I guess it'll tell me I have some long-running business relationships with penis enlargement companies, herbal viagra distributors, and various shady people in Nigeria...

apparently my social network

[Anonymous Coward]

consists of $$exy $luts, people who get rich quick, and guys who have large pumped up organs.

The most important questions...

[Whatsthiswhatsthis]

But here are the two most important questions:

1) How will this prevent spam?

and

2) How will it stop terrorism?

As soon as it stops spam and terrorism, I'm ready to invest.

Possibly

[Captain Beefheart]

...Or InFlow will assume you're a white-collar criminal with a small johnson.

Social Mapping for Geeks

[wackybrit]

New Social-Network Mapping Tools Compared

Oh, come on. This is Slashdot!

Some great technology and concepts exist within social-network mapping tools, but really it's totally useless to us geeks. Our social maps are built up like this:

Computer <--(attachment)--> Geek

Some of the slightly more warped geeks here have it like this:

Wife <--(guardian/moderator)--> Computer
|
| (controlled via sex)
|
V
Chump (a.k.a. geek)

Re:The most important questions...

[Whatsthiswhatsthis]

I rest my case:

"Intelligence analysts once assumed that terrorists organize in isolated cells. But social-network maps revealed that the 9/11 hijackers' cells morphed into a hub-and-spoke pattern with an obvious leader: Mohammed Atta. The active structure resembled that of an IBM project team." from discover.com [discover.com]

This raises a serious question: What is this "IBM" and what kind of "project" are they planning?

This looks great

[Tuxinatorium]

This software looks great, but how do you visualize a beowulf cluster of Linux geeks in Soviet Russia discussing the death of *BSD and proclaiming that all of your OH- ions belong to them?

On second thought, maybe I don't want to visualize that...

Heh!

[Dthoma]

I liked one of the examples [orgnet.com] they give! (Warning: only maths nerds will find this funny.)

Re:Heh!-"Unemployed" singularity.

[Anonymous Coward]

That reminds me. What would the graph of all the people out of work look like?

Re:Dr. Dobbs article about this

[doormat]

You sure? All I remember from those amazon.com "like this-like that" feature was


People who buy this item also buy...

• Clean Underwear
• ...

Really? I buy clean undewear??? And I always thought it was weird until I heard about this [ebay.com]...

Re:The most important questions...

[limekiller4]

Whatsthiswhatsthis writes:
"As soon as it stops spam and terrorism, I'm ready to invest."

I'm not buying it until it supports the Ogg format.