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One interesting problem in social networks is to identify the various roles of people. Some people forward information between communities, others are the central players in communities and some are peripheral persons with only a small social network.

At Xtract, we have studied the roles in social networks for a long time. Our Alpha User concept is directly related to finding the central players in networks. During the years, also other network roles have been analyzed by us.

In the academics, there is also same interesting research being done on the topic of finding network roles. One interesting paper is Classes of complex networks defined by role-to-role connectivity profiles (pdf) by Roger Guimerà et al. They separate the roles in networks into six groups.

Another interesting paper with quite similar aims is Node Roles and Community Structure in Networks (pdf) by Jerry Scripps et al. They have given descriptive names to the different types of people found in social networks. Big fish are the persons who have many friends but belong to only one community. Ambassadors have many friends and belong to multiple communities. Bridges connect communities and loners have only a few friends and participate in just one community.

The scientific work done on finding network roles provides both inspiration and directly applicable methods that can be used to help clients understand their social neighborhoods.

Chris Anderson, the author of the Long Tail book, has written a good blog post with the title “Social networking is a feature, not a destination” about social networking websites. His point is that social networking should not be the privilege of specialized social websites, such as Facebook or MySpace. Instead, every website should incorporate social networking features.

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There has been an active discussion whether social communities are a fad. It was said that even Steve Ballmer thinks they are only a fad. Engagement marketing gurus, like Alan Moore, think communities are something fundamental for human beings. Here is my prediction: Internet communities as we know them today are a fad, but social networks and communities will be a fundamental part of all Internet and mobile services and marketing. I just flew from London to San Francisco and had time to read some articles and really thought this question. Communities like Facebook and MySpace are now very popular, but I see they are only the first step and still quite artificial social networking between people. Advertisers have seen the value already today, and we at Xtract also offer tools for find the right people and communities for each advertising campaign. Individual community services comes and disappears but the phenomenon itself will live. But this is only a starting point. People have many other services they use daily in the Internet. They live with their mobiles 24/7. It cannot be so that your social activities and at the same time community marketing intelligence is limited only to certain web sites. Social network perception will be a fundamental part of everything people develop for the Internet and mobile in near future. And community marketing intelligence will live inside all services and platforms in the future to offer better usability and more relevant and effective advertising.