Predicting Popularity
Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, David Guetta, Lil Wayne, John Mayer. Coldplay. What do they all have in common? For starters, they are some of the most prominent music artists today, selling millions of albums worldwide and regularly releasing singles that place on the Billboard Hot 100. What is the secret to their success? […]
Cooperation in Prisoner’s Dilemma Situations
In class and on this blog, many real-life examples of Prisoner’s Dilemma situations have come up. These include arms races, performance enhancing drug use, corruption, unstable markets, and female shaving (3). For all of these, it is clear that each player’s dominant strategy is the “defect” choice and, so, the only Nash Equilibrium is “defect-defect”. […]
Opinion Poll Madness!
It’s no secret that opinion polls get a little out of control around political elections. Sure – depending on who publishes the poll, the accuracy of the sample, and the questions used, poll results can be all over the place. But there seems to be an information effect on polls as well. We saw one […]
Braess’s Paradox in the NBA
Braess’s Paradox states that adding extra capacity to a network when the moving entities selfishly choose their route can reduce the overall efficiency of the network. The reason why has to do with Nash Equilibrium. In Nash Equilibrium, drivers will have no reason to switch routes; however, in a system not in Nash Equilibrium, drivers […]
Facebook and Information Cascades
http://gigaom.com/2011/11/22/six-degrees-what-does-it-mean-to-be-facebook-friends/ http://gigaom.com/2011/11/02/social-media-tipping-points-and-revolutions/ The phenomenal social trend that is Facebook has been continuing to grow, now boasting over 700 million active users. Recently, the company conducted some social research similar to the study that Stanley Milgram performed in the 1960s regarding his theory of the “six degrees of separation”. The new research on Facebook’s user and […]
Kindle Fire vs. iPad
This article is about how the Kindle Fire is lagging behind the iPad in sales. Several different companies have attempted to come up with products to rival those made by Apple; yet, most products seem to constantly fall short when it comes to sales. Why is this so? It’s certainly not because their features […]
Five Keys for Creating Viral YouTube Titles
http://searchengineland.com/five-keys-for-creating-viral-youtube-titles-37989 There is a lot of information available online referencing SEO, or search engine optimization. Individuals, amateur and professional, are trying to get the marketing edge on their product by simply altering the way they name their videos. The goal of a YouTube advertiser is to get the audience to watch the target video to […]
Why didn’t Google Plus take off?
In class, we have learned a lot about information cascade and the adoption of new technologies by the public. We discussed the way that a new technology can hit one of 2 stable equilibrium. Additionally, we learned about the role that clusters play in the adoption of any new technology. Using this knowledge, we can […]
The Motion Control Cascade
Motion control took the technological and gaming world by storm when the Nintendo Wii was first released in 2006. Initially seen as a gimmick and wasn’t anything revolutionary, the Wii captivated children, adults, and elders with their simplistic remote control approach to their controller with motion control capability. It was to usher in a new […]
Information Cascade
Information cascade refers to a strange phenomenon where people tend to follow other people’s previous actions and decisions. In contemporary world, where social media like Facebook and Twitter prosper, information cascade plays even more significant roles by affecting larger and larger population. For instance, if a person makes a blog post on a particular product […]
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