Being a Sheep: Information Cascades
Say a person decides to go to a restaurant, but he is not sure on where he wants to eat. He is craving Italian food, but when he goes to the Italian restaurant, it is empty. However, next to the Italian restaurant is a Mexican restaurant, and that restaurant is packed. The man then decides […]
The Unidan Story: Information Cascades and Reddit
Reddit is a massive social media site with posts about anything and everything. People post stories, information, news, pictures, etc., and then other members of the community can up-vote posts that they liked and down-vote those they did not. In this seemingly democratic way, quality posts get boosted to the top and get more visibility, […]
Cascades and Crashes
As discussed in class, information cascades are prevalent where people rely on others to make decisions. It was seen in the case of the marbles example, and is relevant in finance as well as politics. The article referenced discusses the bad image of the value of debt in southern European economies. It talks about the […]
Fashion Trends and Direct Benefits
In class, we talked about network effects in direct benefit cascades. In order for a product to be successful, it has to pass a certain “tipping point,” after which it will reach an equilibrium between the number of people who are expected to buy the product and the number of people who actually do buy […]
The Relationship Between Kim Kardashian’s Successful App and Her Social Media Empire
Kim Kardashian can be called many things-superfluous, conceited, wealthy, glamorous, fake-but one title she cannot be called is ignorant. She is hyperaware of the power she has over her millions of twitter, facebook, and instagram followers-and she uses it to her economic advantage. Her empire depends (at it’s core) on selling an image of extravagance […]
How A Hoaxer Used Information Cascades to Fake Macaulay Caulkin’s Death – And Used Advertising Slots to Profit From It
This past Friday, the death of well-known actor Macaulay Caulkin began to go viral all over the Internet, following an article that appeared online claiming he was found in his New York City apartment on Thursday. The article was extremely well-crafted and seemed legitimate at first glance, especially since its format seemed similar to that […]
Cell Phones, Social Networks and Politics
http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/11/03/cell-phones-social-media-and-campaign-2014/ With the most recent mid-term election dominating my timeline on Twitter, I thought I’d find an article concerning this. And in accordance with my suspicion, far more people are involved on social media during this midterm election in comparison to that of the election four years ago. Statistically speaking there has been both a […]
Information cascades and Overheard at Cornell
Overheard groups are Facebook groups for colleges where people post things hilarious, stupid or sexual on campus. Various colleges have this groups but it originally originated from University of Western Ontario, Canada. A particular group I’m referencing in this post is the Overheard at Cornell group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/overheardatcornell/ (Need a Cornell NetID to log on). There […]
Google AdWords system hurts small-business owners
In class, we learned about how Google uses a modified version of the Generalized Second Price Auction to sell its advertising spots to companies. They use the pay-per-click model, where advertisers pay when a user actually clicks on their ad. The price per click is determined in part by Google’s auction. We learned that this […]
Information Cascades and Mob Mentality
If you grew up in an American public school system there is a good chance you had to read Lord of the Flies at some point. As you read the tale of school boys stranded on an island at some point your teacher throws out two words: “Mob Mentality.” Even if you haven’t read William […]