1. A method for managing the interaction of participants in a social network utilizing computers having nodes, and storage comprising the steps of: in a social network having linked computers, gathering information for at least two participants on the social network via at least one of the computers, and assigning each participant to a computer node; identifying an original state for each computer node via at least another of the computers; identifying similarly-situated participants by identifying similarly-situated computer nodes in the social network via the at least another of the computers; managing interaction of the similarly-situated participants by managing the computer node assigned to each of the similarly-situated participants via at least one of the networks; for each of the computer nodes having a new state at some point in time that is a change in state from the original state, identifying the new state for each of the computer nodes having the new state via at least another of the computers wherein the new state is different than the original state and indicates a state change; identifying the change to the computer node's new state from the original state of each computer node that was assigned to each of the similarly-situated participants via the at least another of the computers after the state change; and storing on the storage, information about the identified state change.
1. A method for managing the interaction of participants in a social network utilizing computers having nodes, and storage comprising the steps of: in a social network having linked computers, gathering information for at least two participants on the social network via at least one of the computers, and assigning each participant to a computer node; identifying an original state for each computer node via at least another of the computers; identifying similarly-situated participants by identifying similarly-situated computer nodes in the social network via the at least another of the computers; managing interaction of the similarly-situated participants by managing the computer node assigned to each of the similarly-situated participants via at least one of the networks; for each of the computer nodes having a new state at some point in time that is a change in state from the original state, identifying the new state for each of the computer nodes having the new state via at least another of the computers wherein the new state is different than the original state and indicates a state change; identifying the change to the computer node's new state from the original state of each computer node that was assigned to each of the similarly-situated participants via the at least another of the computers after the state change; and storing on the storage, information about the identified state change. 12. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing a customized display to the first participant based on the information gathered for the first participant.