China’s Weibo & The Information Cascade
A Chinese news site by the name of Weibo was littered with fake news following the election of President Trump. The majority belief throughout China was that both candidates were not great yet Donald Trump as POTUS would be the better interest for China. Although not an expected belief it was justified apparently because his […]
Network Effects and Facebook: Election 2016
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2016/11/breaking-news Following the shocking 2016 presidential election, many media outlets have faced scrutiny for failing to produce accurate news throughout the election process. This article, in particular, examines the scrutiny brought against Facebook for failing to ensure the validity of news stories shared on the site. With more than two billion active monthly users, […]
Apple’s Success Using a Simple Model
In his article, The Story Behind Apple’s Success, Andrew Beattie describes Apple’s rise since its founding and gives insights into what strategies have proven successful. Over the years, Apple has differentiated itself from other technology companies in a number of ways. For one, its products include both hardware and software. This is distinct from […]
Information Cascade in Yeast Cells
In a study published recently by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, molecular biologist, Dr. Roger Brent and computational biologist Dr. Steven Andrews found trends in the way that cells react to external information. To begin, the article describes that from the moment a cell is created, it is already adept at sensing and responding […]
Cascade of the Falsified Web
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/anatomy-of-a-fake-quotation/238257/ It’s no secret that sometimes the internet just can’t be trusted. Be it the memes we view on the day-to-day, or the random articles that trend saying “Jackie Chan is dead” (he’s not), the internet has had a longstanding trend of misinformation that manages to spread like wildfire, sometimes finding its way into […]
High Above the Tipping Point?
The tipping point is the value that a population’s expectations for the number of purchasers of a good must be above in order for the good to succeed. Thus, if the expectations are above the tipping point, there will be upwards pressure on demand and sales are likely to reach z”. On the other hand, […]
Information Cascades and Consumer Decisions
One central topic in this course has been analyzing how opinions, fads, and political movements spread through society; and politics of Web information and on-line communities. Recently in class we have been learning about the power of information cascades and threshold cascade models. An interesting application of threshold cascade models and its influence on consumer […]
Amazon’s Battle with Troll Reviews
When making purchasing decisions, people often find product reviews to be very insightful. In fact, we see that the bigger the purchase, the more time people spend browsing through different reviews and learning about people’s experiences with the product. This showcases the power of networks by highlighting how much buyers trust other people’s opinions on a certain […]
The Unfortunate Ecosystem of Science
The Mathematics of Science’s Broken Reward System by Philip Ball This columnist discusses the evolving ecosystem of papers published by the scientists of today. In the current state of science, researchers have pressure to find statistically significant evidence that supports “high-profile claims.” This pressure stems from a desire for job security and wanting to […]
Bitcoin – Breaking the Network Effect
In class, we discuss the network effect which arises due to the presence of technology. It illustrates that as networked individuals, people tend to make decisions, depending on how other people behave. Specifically, the network effect indicates the utility a user obtains from a good or a service depends on the number of other people […]
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