It appears that LinkSViewer has taken the next step by applying graph theory to a new business venture. This company is a “leading-edge Visual Network Analysis software and consulting firm” who actually take the connections between people and businesses and generate a network based on that information. They then sell the resultant picture as “a visual explanation of complex relationships that is easy to read and understand”. An example network on their site is the relational map between Facebook, Friendster, and LinkedIn available here.

Of course they only aggregate publicly available information (e.g. board members and investors of a company), so it’s technically feasible for someone else to do a similar operation (perhaps they only want to research a few companies). However, LinkSViewer advocates their system not as an information database, but as a facilitator for research. It’s interesting to see that the early-adopters of graph theory in business are touting it’s visual qualities as opposed to any theories or conclusions one might draw from seeing the network as a whole. Apparently, like the security and safety industries, (social) network visualization is becoming an area with great potential but no immediately quantifiable economic benefits.