10. The system of claim 8 , further comprising program instructions, stored on the computer-readable storage device for execution by the processor, to send a list identifying the set of candidate users to the querying user.
8. A system for matching users among social networking environments, the system comprising: a bus; a computer-readable storage device coupled to the bus; a processor coupled to the bus; program instructions, stored on the computer-readable storage device for execution by the processor, to receive one or more goals from a querying user and storing the one or more goals in an electronic storage medium; program instructions, stored on the computer-readable storage device for execution by the processor, to receive one or more selection criteria from the querying user, the selection criteria relating to attributes of a desired set of candidate users to collaborate with the querying user; program instructions, stored on the computer-readable storage device for execution by the processor, to receive from the querying user, a desired degree of social network separation between the querying user and the desired set of candidate users to collaborate with the querying user in achieving the one or more goals; program instructions, stored on the computer-readable storage device for execution by the processor, to store the one or more selection criteria in the electronic storage medium; program instructions, stored on the computer-readable storage device for execution by the processor, to weight one or more selection criteria relative to one another; program instructions, stored on the computer-readable storage device for execution by the processor, to prioritize the one or more selection criteria based on a corresponding weight derived from the weighting; program instructions, stored on the computer-readable storage device for execution by the processor, to search a set of social networks based on the set of goals, the desired degree of social network separation, and the prioritized selection criteria, for a set of candidate users; and program instructions, stored on the computer-readable storage device for execution by the processor, to rank the set of candidate users based on a likelihood of each candidate user in the set of candidate users matching the set of goals and the set of criteria; wherein the desired degree of social network separation comprises a numerical indicator of a maximum number of connected nodes between a node corresponding to the querying user and a set of nodes corresponding to the set of candidate users.