Description
This algorithm analyzes your Facebook friend network. The only input for this plugin is the access key, which is generated by the Facebook Access Token plugin. After authenticating and grabbing the data, the plugin will return the following information for each of your friends: name, user ID, latest update, gender, current location, hometown, birth date, interests, religion, political views, relationship status, and attended events.
Pros & Cons
- Average users of Facebook will most likely not hit the Facebook API limit.
- As with many other plugins, your results depend heavily on how structured your data is. In this particular instance, you will most likely deal with very incomplete data, as it all depends on how much information your friends have provided.
Applications
This plugin could be used for a social study of your own personal connections list. This data could be visualized by shared friends, shared events, proximity of connected friends, birthday clustering, and more.
Implementation Details
This algorithm uses a URL query to ask Facebook for information about your friends. The data is then added to a structured CSV. The plugin is included with the Sci2 application. It can be found under File > Facebook > Facebook Friends Data along with the rest of the data generators.
Usage Hints
Listed are the steps for using the algorithm:
- Run the Facebook Access Token algorithm first to gain access to the API (more details found here).
- With the results of the previous plugin selected, navigate back to File > Facebook > Facebook Friends Data and run it.
- The plugin will ask you for confirmation. Accept to continue.
- The algorithm will run and produce results in your Data Manager.