Program Tools for Dynamic Investigation of Social Networks

This paper discusses the design and development of software tools for simulation of social networks. It is well known that social networks have become the object of attention of sociologists, political scientists, marketers, etc. The paper identifies two trends in the investigation of social networks: static and dynamic. Static approach involves the study of geometric forms of social networking, network structure (topology), its basic properties (the degree of centrality, distance, and so on). The dynamic approach makes it possible to follow the various stages of a social network formation, to identify the connections between nodes of social network, to identify the formation of clusters in the Internet-graph. Paper considers the existing software tools for social network simulation and put forward demands to the software of this kind (agentbased approach, distributed simulation). Moreover paper discusses if it is possible to use computer network simulator TriadNS for modeling of social networks and the definition of both static and dynamic characteristics of these networks.