You seem to be very knowledgeable in this area. May I ask what your background is? I would like to take on some self study in this area. Would you have any advice?
Besides the excellent suggestions by the parent, I might also look at the awesome work done by Jon Kleinberg for a more theoretical understanding. One may start with his pretty concise Networks book:
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/
Excellent book. Definitely recommend if you want to develop a deeper understanding.
Just dive in man. Get some datasets, intelligently break them apart, and just try to start predicting who should like what movie. It isn't too hard if you've gone to university for a STEM degree or learned the math some other way.