MySpace: New, Improved, and Growing
Myspace – The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again? [INFOGRAPHIC] Back in the early-mid 2000’s when MySpace was at the peak of its popularity, it was the most visited social networking site in the world, even surpassing Google. In around 2009, it started its decline as it was eventually surpassed by newer social sites such as […]
Google’s PageRank Negatively Impacting Leftist Pages
https://www.salon.com/2017/10/18/fake-news-or-free-speech-is-google-cracking-down-on-left-media/ In terms of our Networks class this article brings up the concept of PageRank. We learned that whether or not a page shows up at the top of the list and the order all involves the rank its page has. This ranking is a number that is assigned to each page based on its […]
Increasing or decreasing safety amongst crowds
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-sunday-some-churchgoers-may-choose-to-pack-guns-with-their-bibles-1510488001 Given the recent discussions on information cascades, and the choice of whether to follow the crowd in its selections (assuming they are rational decision-makers and must have some additional information) or choosing to do something out of one’s own volition and interest, the question of carrying firearms to public places and even in […]
Spacetime as a Network, and Entropy as a Network
Dr. Stephen Wolfram is perhaps best known as the CEO of Wolfram Research, the company that runs Wolfram Alpha and Mathematica. However, in his spare time, Dr. Wolfram studies physics. Dr. Wolfram has developed quite an interesting idea, which is that space could be simply a network and that all of the laws of physics […]
Advertising through Facebook
The advertising market is crucial to the success of many different companies, with many relying on it to provide a foundation for their businesses. Most recently, big marketing brands have been avoiding the advertising platform offered by Youtube as their ads have been appearing alongside extremist videos. Other big advertising companies such as Google and […]
Harvey Weinstein and the Networks of Power
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/13/harvey-weinstein-allegations-hollywood-enablers What is so striking about this article is how the language and terms that it employs correspond so strongly to what we have studied about popularity being a network phenomenon and how new behaviors diffuse through a network. What was it that enabled Weinstein to carry out decades of predatory behavior? The article pulls […]
Newspapers and Technology – Network Effects
http://www.economist.com/node/15108618 This article focuses on the future of the newspaper industry. With evolving technology, the question of network effects comes into the picture. As the article alludes to, will the internet be the reason physical newspapers go out of business? It appears that this may be the case. This can be explained through network […]
Network Effects in Predicting Popular Media
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-rich-get-richer-effect/ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15wwlnidealab.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all A significant application of network effects in popularity is Hollywood and the prediction of hit media such as movies, songs and books. Without considering basic network effects and the rich get richer effect, it is baffling that most artists and producers cannot seem to regularly predict what is going to become successful or […]
Stop Shaming “Basic” People for their Rational Reasoning
http://college.usatoday.com/2017/04/15/voices-why-you-should-stop-basic-shaming/ Recently, our topics of discussion have focused a lot on information cascades, models for popularity, and the benefits of joining a crowd. However, these discussions have mainly involved hypothetical scenarios and situations. In real life, although these theoretical benefits of being a part of a crowd are still applicable, people often are judged for […]
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