Apple Pay and Network Effects
Recently, Apple released Apple pay, an app that enables mobile transactions. For years tech companies like Google and Softcard have been trying get their customers to make in-store purchases with their smartphones. In the three weeks since Apple released Apple pay major retailers have seen an increased number of people checking out with their i-phones. […]
Fractured Social Networks in The Inner City
I grew up in the suburbs of Buffalo; a city that to many exemplifies post-industrial urban decay. I’ve heard statistics about my city, like how it ranks among the poorest cities in the country with more than thirty percent of its citizens living below the poverty line, or how since 1955 the city has lost […]
Why did we change ?
Social media has been defining the way we live our lives and even the way we think. It all started with one company that revolutionized and invited what social media is, it was Myspace. Myspace was founded in 2003 and it’s popularity started to rise in the years from 2005 when Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation […]
Snapchat Success in Mobile Payments and The Network Effect
Very recently, Snapchat announced a new feature, Snapcash, that would allow users to send money through the Snapchat App in addition to sending photos, videos, texts, etc. This move comes with the news that Snapchat is partnering with Square, a payment firm, and they would be assisting in securely having this function in the app. […]
Information Cascades in the Stock Market
One topic that we have discussed in lecture that has many practical applications is the information cascade. An information cascade is when a person makes a decision based on the previous decisions of others rather than on his or her own opinion. The example discussed during class was that if many people are in a […]
The Three-Door Problem and Bayes’ Law
The three-door problem (as known as the Monty Hall problem) is an intriguing and counter-intuitive thought experiment of how Bayes’ Law works. It sets up an imaginary scene: you are on a TV show, and you want to get a super large prize. To get it, you have to guess which of the three doors […]
Why such a low succesful reception of anything
The article states that a study was conducted to test out the 6 degrees of separation by having strangers from the Mid-west send a package to a stranger in Boston. This had been accomplished in 5 steps however the package reception rate was low. There was another study shown to explain why this had happened. […]
Information Cascades in Online Movie Ratings?
This study examines a real-life application of information cascades and the herding phenomenon. Information cascades can be observed in everyday activities such as online movie ratings. In this study, the effects of observation learning from preceding crowd and friends on individual’s movie ratings and the occurrence of herding in such events are analyzed. Th online […]
U.S. Mobile Payments Market to Boom due to Strong Network Effect
Researches have shown that current mobile-based payment in the United States hover around $50 billion a year and is expected to rise $142 billion in volume by 2019. In the past few years, technology companies have raced to create their own forms of mobile wallets. Companies such as Google, PayPal, and AT&T all created their […]
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