Searching and creating your own maps is the first step in learning to analyze networks with LinkSViewer. In this chapter you will learn how to initiate a search, understand the results, and create your own maps.

There are two ways to search for Companies, Investors, and People in LinkSViewer: the QuickSearch and the Standard Search.

The 'QuickSearch' is a feature that is meant to make it quick and easy to search for a specific Company, Investor, and/or Person by name. So, if you know the name of what (or who) you are searching for, this may be the fastest way to find it. Below you can see what the QuickSearch field looks like, it is located at the top center of the screen of the LinkSViewer 1.2 interface.

When you click on the QuickSearch field, the word 'QuickSearch' will disappear, and you can enter in your search term(s). For example, if you were interested in the Company: Google and the Person: Marc Andreessen, you could enter "google, andrees" into the field as seen below (the last 'e' and 's' are cut off because of the limited space in the search field) You can enter multiple search terms separated by commas, and the QuickSearch will return results that match any of your entered terms.

After you enter your search term(s), hit 'Enter' and LinkSViewer will process your search. The QuickSearch works by taking each of the search terms you have entered and checking each node type for matches. For this example, the QuickSearch will check for Companies, Investors, and People that match either the words "Google" or "andrees". Any matching results will then be displayed in the Results Screen. As pictured below, the results contains three columns of results with, from left to right, the matching Companies, Investors, and People. For this particular search, note that the results show that Google was the only matching Company, Marc Andreessen was listed as an Investor and a Person, and another Person named Tim Google was returned as well. Marc Andreessen is listed in the Investor and Person fields because he exists both as an Investor and as a Board Member.

LinkSViewer lists the search criteria that were applied for each category above each of the results fields on the Results Page. Because this search was performed from the QuickSearch field, the search terms were applied across all three categories. This is why under Company Filters, Investor Filter, and Person Filter it says: Name Matches 'google' or 'andrees'.

The next step is to highlight the entries from the results which you would like to include in your network map. In the example below, the entry for Google and both entries for Marc Andreessen are highlighted by clicking the mouse on their names in the lists. After selecting the node(s) you want to map, click on the "Show Relational Map" button, and LinkSViewer will take you to the Relational Map view of the network for the selected entries.

The Standard Search screen is typically the first screen you encounter when logging on to LinkSViewer. You can also arrive there by clicking on the "Search" link at the top of every LinkSViewer screen. The Standard Search allows you to set different search criteria for each of the three search categories (Companies, Investors, and People). Whereas the QuickSearch applies the same terms across all three.

The Standard Search screen also allows you to search by criteria other than name. You can limit and filter the search according to a Company's sector, or a minimum or maximum number of investments that an Investor has made, or the number of boards that a Person sits on. Below you can see all of the search fields available in the Standard Search.