Abstract: One embodiment of a method for analyzing the social network data of one or more users can retrieving from a server data indicative of a user interest profile; determining an initial interest set from the user interest profile using a social graph function; determining a user network influence score including both an influence score for a user and one or more user connections; and generating a final user interest profile in response to an iterative combination of the initial interest set and the user network influence score such that in response to a query, the final user interest profile is returned. Preferably, the preferred method returns the final user interest profile from a central computer to a second computer associated with a third party initiating the query.