Centrality and Power among Website Users: A Social Network Analysis Application

A major feature of the emergence of Web 2.0 is the proliferation of ‘consumer-generated content’ (CGC) websites, often established as alternatives to corporate or ‘official’ sites. In this paper, we report on a preliminary study designed to demonstrate how techniques drawn from ‘Social Network Analysis’ (SNA) and artificial intelligence might be employed to develop an understanding of the influence relationships and hierarchies within these websites. Armed with this knowledge, organizations may be able to develop strategies as to how they might best co-exist and deal with relevant CGC sites.