Abstract: A graph of a social network is received. The graph may include a node for each user account and an edge between nodes that represent social networking relationships such as messages between the user accounts or a friend relationship. The graph is transformed into a transformed graph where nodes have direct edges depending on a local test among its neighbors in the original graph. Small subsets of the transformed graph are categorized. The categories are used to identify subgraphs in the transformed graph. Each subgraph is grown by adding an edge from the transformed graph to the subgraph depending on local tests among nodes associated with the edge that have at least one edge that is already in the subgraph. The categorized subgraphs are used to provide targeted advertising, suggest new connections, identify different personalities and interests of users, or to provide other services.

Abstract: A graph of a social network is received. The graph may include a node for each user account and an edge between nodes that represent social networking relationships such as messages between the user accounts or a friend relationship. The graph is transformed into a transformed graph where nodes have direct edges depending on a local test among its neighbors in the original graph. Small subsets of the transformed graph are categorized. The categories are used to identify subgraphs in the transformed graph. Each subgraph is grown by adding an edge from the transformed graph to the subgraph depending on local tests among nodes associated with the edge that have at least one edge that is already in the subgraph. The categorized subgraphs are used to provide targeted advertising, suggest new connections, identify different personalities and interests of users, or to provide other services.