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.