Social Network

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Social Network resources including graphing tools, data, venues, and researchers.

1 Graphing Tools
2 Data
3 Venues
4 Famous Researchers

[edit] Graphing Tools

Cytoscape - The tool was primarily designed for analyzing and visualizing biological networks, however I've found it quite useful for visualizing social networks. I like it because it is fairly easy to import data (even from a text file) and attach attribute data to nodes, it loads networks that are quite large, has a number of visualization layout available (I like organic), and is easy to move nodes around. However, there is a great need to add many of the social network analysis algorithms to filter graphs.
GraphViz - Graphviz is another open source graph package used for visualization. It draws graphs very nicely and uses simple syntax. It has a few layout managers that make it easy to draw good-looking graphs. The main problem that I have noticed is drawing very large graphs. It gives little flexibility for node and edge placement, and has changed very little in the past few years. As an aside, there is even a Mac OS X version available.

R - R is an open source software environment for statistical computing and graphics. There are various social network analysis libraries available for R that can be used. However, many of them are new and incomplete. The igraph library is one that I have enjoyed using and have been pleased with the capabilities.
Network Workbench Tool - Here is a relatively new tool that has been created in part through an $1.1 million NSF grant. I would expect it to continually improve in the near future, due to heightened expectations. It is built in Java and uses the JUNG and possibly prefuse libraries (cited below).
NetDraw - Windows graphing tool. Good for quickly displaying a graph, modifying node shapes, colors, edge thicknesses, and displaying multiple relations. I like the VNA file format that it uses. It would be better if it worked with more file formats.
NetworkX - NetworkX is a Python package for the creation, manipulation, and study of the structure, dynamics, and functions of complex networks (Los Alamos National Labratory).
Pajek - Good tool that does quite a few things. The downside is that it is somewhat confusing to the new user. Additionally, it is currently available for Windows only.
JUNG - Java Universal Network/Graph Framework. This is quite nice and has been improving fairly rapidly.
Prefuse - Prefuse is a set of software tools for creating rich interactive data visualizations. The original prefuse toolkit provides a visualization framework for the Java programming language. The prefuse flare toolkit provides visualization and animation tools for ActionScript and the Adobe Flash Player. This toolkit also appears to be increasingly popular and useful.

Flash and Javascript

Flare - Impressive visualizations. Uses Adobe Flex SDK.
Graph Gear - XML Graph files presented using Flash
JIT - Javascript. Somewhat primitive and less impressive.
Google Visualization API - Javascript library that allows for graphing a number of things. I believe it is still weak in terms of graphing social networks, but that could change any day.