Visualize your Facebook network

Hey

This tutorial will walk you through the simple procedure to visualize (and possibly analyse) your facebook network, from scratch.

Note: I run Ubuntu 12.04. The process shouldn't be much difficult for other versions. But, I personally found difficulties when using gephi with 11.04, with no valid reason. In such a case, please try upgrading.

1. Download Gephi here

2. cd into Gephi directory. Then,

$ cd bin

$ ./gephi

2. This should start gephi.

3. If you want a quick walk around this software, please go through this tutorial

4. Now log in your facebook account and search for netvizz app. Do the appropriate selections and download the gdf files. Open the gdf file into gephi.

5. For layout use the force atlas 2. This will run a program that'll put the mass of nodes into different groups. Stop after 2-4 seconds. 

6. Then run the modularity button on the right side statistics panel. 

7. Refresh the partition options and choose the criteria on which basis you would like to partition the network. In the shown figure, I used modularity class. 

9. Apply

Done !!

My fb network with possible communities colored differently

Analyzing one's own facebook network is a much more interesting task than killing time on it :)