The Rioting Game
The beginning of the conflict among Canadian students and the government began when Jean Charest’s Liberal party of Quebec proposed to raise tuition costs by $325 per year for five years. Students refused to return to class, blocked university buildings and bridges, and vandalized. Reports of abuse from riot police occurred frequently and the turmoil served to divide the city. […]
Yelping About Yelp
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/02/27/2-investigators-businesses-yelping-about-review-driven-web-site/ http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/networks/yelp.htm Yelp, the restaurant review service has gone under quite kitchen heat of late. Recently, many sources have surfaced stating that Yelp uses deceptive techniques to diminish the amount of negative reviews consumers find for certain clients. While Yelp has strongly denied these allegations, it seems as though the consumer-base still holds strong skepticism […]
Prisoner’s Dilemma of Racing Suits
Source: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/USA/31825.asp?q=A-Look-Back-at-the-Olympic-Games This article provides a recap of how swimmers performed at the London Olympics this past summer. What makes these Olympics different from the Beijing Olympics four years ago? Competition suits. The difference between competition suits now and those four years ago is the material of the suit and its total coverage (i.e. jammers […]
What it Takes to Be on Top: The Prisoner’s Dilemma of Athletics
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sportsmoney/2011/06/26/cheating-in-college-athletics-and-the-prisoners-dilemma/ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303936704576400052122863390.html-referenced in first piece Every Saturday during the fall millions of avid football fans turn on their televisions to watch their favorite college athletes go head to head. Unfortunately, recently the biggest news surrounding college athletics is not only about the team rivalries or the nail-biting fourth-quarter comebacks, but also about the cheating scandals […]
IT Companies pursuing Strong Triadic Closure in the Modern World
Article: Infosys Launches Social Networking Platform For Employees “Infosys Bubble” http://techcircle.vccircle.com/500/infosys-launches-social-networking-platform-for-employees-%E2%80%9Cinfosys-bubble%E2%80%9D/ SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/alliegaines/Desktop/INFO%202040/Blogs/BlogPost1.doc As discussed in class, strong triadic closure is defined as the property when some node X has strong ties to both nodes Y and Z, then nodes Y and Z must have an edge in the graph connecting them that is either strong […]
Birchbox, Delivering Beauty Straight to Your Door
(img credit: Birchbox) Would you pay $10 for 4-5 deluxe beauty samples delivered in a cute little box directly to your door? If so, there are over 100,000 others just like you. Birchbox, founded a mere two years ago in NYC, connects thousands of people to high end beauty related brands through their exclusive (there’s a […]
The Measure of Tie Strength and Their Importance In Networks
In Peter Marsden’s and Karen Campbell’s article, “Reflections on Conceptualizing and Measuring Tie Strength,” they revisit their older study on “Measuring Tie Strength.” As time has passed, interest in the concept of tie strength has remained high. This article is heavily associated with the content with discussed in class, specifically with chapter 3 on strong […]
The Network Effect helps Startups
http://www.fastcompany.com/37621/network-effects This article wonders why internet based companies grow so fast (in money, and users) without big marketing budgets. One of the most interesting examples is Hotmail, a free mail service, which was created in July, 4, 1996. Surprisingly, Hotmail, with only 50,000 dollars invested in marketing, and a really bad launching date, (most marketing […]
Game Theory in Simulations
Link to paper titled “Rational Game Theory and Serious Video Games”: http://www.sundialmedia.com/papers/futureplay.pdf The paper is about applying game theory principles to “serious video games” or “computational simulations of real-world events or processes that have pedagogical significance over and above their possible entertainment value”. The author attempts to apply game theory to two games both about […]
Network Theory:The Key to Understanding Nature
Network Theory: The Key to Understanding Nature Perhaps the most basic example of network theory is the “6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon” phenomenon, studying the interconnectedness of people in society and how they are never more than 6 “links” away from knowing Kevin Bacon. Researchers realized that they could take this theory of interconnectedness and […]
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