A formal model for building a social network

A social network is a map of specified ties between the actors being studied. Social network analysis is the mapping and measuring of relationships between entities to provide a visual and mathematical analysis of relationships among actors. Interest in analyzing computer-based social networks has grown as human communication has increasingly moved online. More so, computer logs give the ability to instrument and measure computer-based social network activities. The social network analysis of computer-based networks may reveal ways in which people communicate and this may find the type of products or services users are willing to pay for. In this paper, we extended a high level Petri nets with channels for formally modeling social networks. The formal model provides a solid foundation for rigorously analyze social network activities. We illustrated the idea and demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach through modeling and analyzing a friend suggestion function in a social network.