Patent ID: 8738695

Claim:
A method for analyzing integrated social and content networks comprising the steps of: specifying a social network comprising multiple user nodes, at least some of the user nodes being joined to one another by one or more internal links; specifying a content network comprising multiple content nodes, wherein at least some of said content nodes comprise multimedia content, and said multimedia content nodes further comprise first multimedia content nodes and second multimedia content nodes, wherein the multimedia content of each first multimedia content node is of a type that is different from the multimedia content of each second multimedia content node, and at least a given one of said user nodes is joined to one of said first multimedia content nodes by a first hybrid link, and at least one user node other than said given user node is joined to one of said second multimedia content nodes by a second hybrid link; analyzing data elements associated with respective nodes of said user and content networks, in order to identify a set of nodes comprising at least first and second user nodes and at least a first multimedia content node and a second multimedia content node, wherein two of said nodes comprise end nodes; further analyzing said data elements to identify at least three commonality links that collectively join all the nodes of said set together into a structure that defines an open loop extending between said end nodes; and determining whether a further link is a valid commonality link, wherein said further link is initially inferred to extend between said two end nodes of said set, and to cooperatively join with said at least three identified commonality links to form a closed loop.