On Some Aspects of Link Analysis and Informal Network in Social Network Platform

This paper presents a review on the two important aspects of Social Network, namely Link Analysis and Informal Network. Both of these characteristic plays a vital role in analysis of direction of information flow and reliability of the information passed or received. They can be easily visualized or can be studied using the concepts of graph theory. We have deliberately omitted discussing about general definitions of social network and representing the relationship between actors as a graph with nodes and edges. This paper starts with a formal definition of Informal Network and continues with some of its major aspects. Moreover its application is explained with a real life example of a college scenario. In the later part of the paper, some aspects of Informal Network have been presented. The similar kind of real life scenario is also being drawn out here to represent application of informal network. Lastly, this paper ends with a general conclusion on these two topics. Key Terms: Social Network; Link Analysis; Information Overload; Formal Network; Informal Network Full Text: http://www.ijcsmc.com/docs/papers/July2013/V2I7201389.pdf