Connected Action

Sociology and the Internet, Social Media, Networks and Mobile Social Software

A bundle of new features for NodeXL v.177: Edges++

September 14th, 2011 · No Comments

Luka Potkonjak has contributed a new feature to NodeXL: edge bundling.  Following on the heels of the release of curved edges in version. 175, we now provide a way to gather parallel edges together into “bundles” that travel together until they diverge close to their destinations. The effect is visually striking.  Here is a before [...]

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Tags: Foundation · Measuring social media · Network visualization layouts · NodeXL · SMRF · Social Media Research Foundation · Social network · Visualization

3rd Party Data Importers for NodeXL: Web, Exchange, and Facebook Importers

September 7th, 2011 · No Comments

NodeXL is extendable.  3rd Party developers have been building data providers that can plug into NodeXL that connect the network visualization tool to sources of network data.  We now have three providers of extensions to NodeXL: VOSON for WWW hyperlink networks, the Exchange Spigot for NodeXL for extracting enterprise email networks, and the Facebook Spigot [...]

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Tags: APIs and File Formats · Foundation · GraphML · Measuring social media · Network data providers (spigots) · NodeXL · Research · SMRF · Social Media Research Foundation · Social network · Visualization

Please vote on our SxSW panel: Social Mapping: Bridging Online & Offline Events

August 15th, 2011 · No Comments

  Please vote on our SxSW 2012 panel: Social Mapping : Bridging Online & Offline Events   Event Interactive 2012 Format Workshop Organizer Emily Gannett ‐ IRL Productions Speakers Marc Smith ‐ Social Media Research Foundation Description Look up from your phone and you will notice that offline is not obsolete. Experiences in real life (IRL) remain powerful and memorable. Online [...]

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Tags: Collective Action · Common Goods · Community · Companies · Conference · Connected Action · Foundation · Industry · Measuring social media · Network visualization layouts · NodeXL · Research · SMRF · Social Interaction · Social Media · Social Media Research Foundation · Social network · Social Network Analysis · Social Roles · Social Theories and concepts · Sociology · SxSW · Talks · Visualization

9 August 2011 – Social Media SNA Workshop – Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (http://www.aejmc.com/)

July 31st, 2011 · No Comments

Here is a map of the connections among the people who tweeted the term “AEJMC” on August 7, 2011: The top most between people in this network are:@aejmc, @jlab, @karenrussell, @terryflynn, @natcomm, @tmccorkindale, @derigansilver, @tkell, @aejmconlineads, and @jeremyhl: I will present a Workshop on Social Media Network Analysis and NodeXL at the 9 August 2011 – [...]

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Tags: Collective Action · Common Goods · Community · Conference · Foundation · Measuring social media · Metrics · Network clusters and communities · Network data providers (spigots) · Network metrics and measures · Network visualization layouts · NodeXL · Performance scale parallel and cloud computing · SMRF · Social Media · Social network · Social Network Analysis · Social Roles · Social Theories and concepts · Sociology · Technology · User interface · Visualization

A legend in your own network graph: NodeXL legend describes data elements

June 12th, 2011 · No Comments

Every network visualization should have a legend that explains what the colors, edge widths, and filters are that define the network graph. NodeXL automatically generates a network legend and displays it when the Graph Elements menu is opened: And the “Legend” option is selected. This will place a legend at the bottom of the visualization [...]

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Tags: Foundation · Network visualization layouts · NodeXL · SMRF · Social Media Research Foundation · Social network · User interface · Visualization

A Sample Settings File for NodeXL: An automated recipie for making Twitter network visualizations

June 12th, 2011 · No Comments

Starting in version .165 of NodeXL we have supported the idea of an options file that can be imported, exported and exchanged among users. If you have set all the knobs and dials of your copy of NodeXL just right, you can export these adjustments and configurations into a single file.  Use the NodeXL>Options>Export feature [...]

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Tags: Network metrics and measures · Network visualization layouts · NodeXL · User interface

#rw2011 – A Royal Wedding NodeXL Twitter map

April 28th, 2011 · No Comments

The Royal Wedding is a topic of great interest around the world. This is a map of the connections among the Twitter users who recently tweeted the words #rw2011 when queried on April 28, 2011, scaled by numbers of followers (with outliers thresholded), connected by replying, mentioning and following. Layout using the “Group Layout” composed [...]

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Tags: Companies · Connected Action · Data Mining · Foundation · Measuring social media · NodeXL · Research · SMRF · Social Media · Social Media Research Foundation · Social network · Social Network Analysis · Social Roles · Social Theories and concepts · Sociology · Twitter · Visualization

iConference 2011 Wiki roles paper awarded best paper – University of Washington, Seattle, WA

April 24th, 2011 · 3 Comments

http://www.ischools.org/iConference11/2011index/ Our paper, Finding Social Roles in Wikipedia,  about the variety of  roles people perform in Wikis received the best paper award (along with 4 others) in a field of 86 papers.   The 2011 iConference accepted 86 papers, and had about 550 attendees. The paper is authored by: Howard T. Welser at Ohio University, [...]

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Tags: Conference · Connected Action · Data Mining · Foundation · Measuring social media · Metrics · NodeXL · Papers · Research · SMRF · Social Interaction · Social Media · Social network · Social Network Analysis · Social Theories and concepts · Sociology · Talks · University · Visualization · Washington

Group-in-a-box – a new layout option in NodeXL (v.164)

March 17th, 2011 · 2 Comments

Attractive and well designed network visualization layouts are complex to automate.  Many researchers have devoted a great deal of effort to refining algorithms that assign the best set of positions to a set of nodes.  In many cases a layout algorithm will work well for some types of graphs and not others.  NodeXL has a [...]

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Tags: Companies · Connected Action · Foundation · Network visualization layouts · NodeXL · SMRF · Social Network Analysis · Sociology · Twitter · University · Visualization

How to build a collection of influential followers in Twitter using social network analysis and NodeXL

March 5th, 2011 · No Comments

Here is a recipe for finding and building collections of influential Twitter users relevant to your goal and message. A common question related to social media that I am often asked is: “how do we grow our twitter followers?”  I try to re-frame that question as “how can we get our message viewed by the [...]

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Tags: Companies · Connected Action · Industry · Measuring social media · NodeXL · Social Interaction · Social network · Social Network Analysis · Social Roles · Twitter · Visualization

2011 State of the Union: Mapping the connections among Twitter users who tweet about SOTU

January 22nd, 2011 · 3 Comments

The United States State of the Union address this year will be held Tuesday evening, 25 January 2011. The event is a globally visible opportunity for the President of the United States to present the Administration’s vision for its agenda for the year to the people of the US and the world. The hashtag #stateoftheunion [...]

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Tags: Collective Action · Data Mining · Foundation · Measuring social media · Metrics · Network clusters and communities · NodeXL · Politics · SMRF · Social Interaction · Social Media · Social network · Social Network Analysis · Social Roles · Social Theories and concepts · Sociology · Twitter · Visualization

HICSS 2011 Paper: EventGraphs: Charting Collections of Conference Connections

January 9th, 2011 · No Comments

A recent paper “EventGraphs: Charting Collections of Conference Connections” by Marc Smith from Connected Action, Professor Derek Hansen (College of Information Studies) and Professor Ben Shneiderman (Computer Science/Human Computer Interaction Lab) both from the University of Maryland and has been accepted for publication at the 2011 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) Conference.  This is the 44th year for the conference. [...]

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Tags: Conference · Connected Action · Data Mining · Ecology · Foundation · HICSS · Maryland · Measuring social media · Network clusters and communities · Network data providers (spigots) · Network metrics and measures · NodeXL · Papers · Research · SMRF · Social Interaction · Social network · Social Network Analysis · Social Theories and concepts · Twitter · University · Visualization

Aggregate Overall Metrics Feature: Finding patterns in collections of many networks using NodeXL

December 28th, 2010 · No Comments

Once you start creating and collecting network graphs you may find you can build a significant collection: hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of graphs may result from a study or on-going monitoring project. In a series of features in the NodeXL project we have enabled a workflow for constructing many social media  network graphs [...]

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Tags: Network metrics and measures · NodeXL · Performance scale parallel and cloud computing · Social Media · Social network · Visualization

Geocode your Twitter network with NodeXL

December 19th, 2010 · 1 Comment

As mobile devices become a major method for authoring and consuming social media, location data is increasingly a part of many posts, tweets, check-ins, and messages.  Many Twitter clients, for example, can add the user’s current latitude and longitude to the metadata associated with a tweet.  Other systems like Facebook Places, Google Latitude and Foursquare [...]

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Tags: APIs and File Formats · Foundation · Location · Measuring social media · Mobile Devices · Network data providers (spigots) · Network metrics and measures · Network visualization layouts · NodeXL · Sensors · SMRF · Social Media · Social network · Social Network Analysis · Technology · Twitter · Visualization

A network guide to NodeXL features: The new NodeXL sample network (in v.159)

December 19th, 2010 · No Comments

Eduarda Mendes Rodrigues, (University of Porto) from the NodeXL team has created a sample network file that attempts to highlight the functions and applications of the social media network analysis toolkit.  The latest release of NodeXL now contains this sample file: In this map nodes represent the major feature groups and functions in the NodeXL application. [...]

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Tags: Foundation · Network data providers (spigots) · Network metrics and measures · Network visualization layouts · NodeXL · SMRF · Social network · User interface · Visualization