Network effects in the “Also Recommended’ section when shopping online
Link: blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2016/11/16/how-people-react-to-the-also-recommended-section-of-online-stores/ Today, online retailers like to make use of network effects as a marketing strategy. On most e-commerce sites, a product is featured on its own designated webpage. On each of these pages, retailers can implement a system that recommends similar or relevant products to the consumers. This creates a product network in which […]
Election Upset Caused by Information Cascades
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/a-social-echo-chamber/article9350049.ece This article from The Hindu discusses the concept of social echo chambers. Particularly, how they pertain to the outcome of the recent election. The article states that people’s facebooks friends tend to share similar beliefs to them. As a result, articles of certain viewpoints get repeatedly shared among groups of like-minded individuals. This sharing […]
Information Cascades in Investing
Link: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/where-stock-market-psychology-pricing-intersect Investors in the today’s stock market have a wealth of information on which to base their decision to buy, hold, or sell. For example, a typical investor might decide based on indicators of the company’s value, such as an earnings statement or a balance sheet. However, sometimes the price of a stock moves […]
Information Cascade and Social Networks
An information cascade occurs when individuals make decisions based on other people’s decisions. Individuals reach conclusions based on the limited information they have acquired and by observing what other people do. An example we used in class was guessing the majority color of the bin based on what you picked and what others before you […]
Facebook’s Miscalculated Metrics
Article referenced in post: http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-says-it-found-more-miscalculated-metrics-1479303984 On November 16th, Facebook reported that it discovered more flaws in its calculation methods related to advertising. Facebook conducted an internal audit of its metrics analysis and found that the metric failed to properly estimated weekly and monthly reach of advertisers’ posts. This is very troubling to advertisers because they […]
Market Volatility World-Wide in Reaction to US Presidential Elections
On Tuesday, November 9th, financial markets began cratering through the night as votes were counted and Donald Trump moved closer toward a massive upset victory in the US presidential election, one he eventually secured early Wednesday morning. US and European stock futures and benchmarks in Asia began sliding and the Mexican peso crashed. Meanwhile, safe […]
Power Laws and Believing in Yourself
This article dealt with power laws and how it goes hand and hand with success. The author explains many different examples of power laws in society. He explains that power laws are the reason why one souvenir stand is super crowded in a foreign country or why authors like J.K Rowling or Steven King are […]
Reverse Network Effects: Election Forecasts
A recent article speculated that the presidential election was greatly influenced by election polls. Clinton’s chief campaign strategist explained that the national “obsession” with campaign forecasters worried the Democratic campaign in the final weeks of the election. Recently, a new phenomenon of reporting on elections by forecasting probabilities of victories has begun. However, these reports […]
Cascades and Misinformation
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/technology/social-medias-globe-shaking-power.html?_r=0 The spread of misinformation on social media is astounding, having the ability to influence the decisions of a big proportion of the population. This is fundamentally linked to how information cascades can be wrong: a population will still accept a bad choice. For example, there was a fake story about Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump […]
Facebook as the Media
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/14/technology/facebook-is-said-to-question-its-influence-in-election.html Recently facebook has been in the news for its influence during the election. The site was accused of distributing false news stories to its users both supporting Mr. Trump and defaming Mrs. Clinton. One story claimed that Pope Francis had endorsed Mr.Trump, while another claimed that an FBI agent associated with Mrs. Clinton had […]
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