Can algorithms really tackle the fake news fiasco?
According to a study by the University of Oxford, the 2016 US presidential elections were a “watershed moment” with rampant fake news all over the social media. Both Trump and Clinton camps exploited big data to manipulate the public opinion. As can be easily imagined, this phenomena is not limited to just the election; this is […]
Valuations in Volunteer Work
Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/jobs/matching-volunteers-to-the-right-missions.html The article I read focused on a service that directed volunteer workers to specific volunteer opportunities based on their skills and desires to work. The program “Sparked”, connects workers to volunteer jobs that best suit what they can do. New York Cares, an organization that coordinates volunteer work in New York, uses the […]
Google’s Page Rank Transparency Controversy
Over the past few years, Google has been greatly reducing the transparency of their Page Ranking Algorithm updates. In fact, they have become so secretive that Google does not even mark each update with a descriptive name; each update goes by the pseudonym “Fred.” The Fred updates are elusive and typically destructive to webpage owners. […]
Auctions in Programmatic Ad Buying
As discussed in class, there are a variety of different auction structures, ranging from descending-bid auctions to second-price sealed-bid auctions. Each of these auction types have an associated dominant bidding strategy. For example, a bidder should stay in an ascending-bid auction until the true value is reached. In programmatic, a method of advertisement buying, a […]
How can we stop rush hour traffic?
The Los Angeles and New York rush hour. Anyone who visits the largest cities on opposite coasts will no doubt experience it. A quite normal 45 minute drive can become a three hour bumper-to-bumper monstrosity. What makes the traffic even more shocking is that there’s almost always construction occurring on the highways, whether it’s through […]
Auctions are all over the place; they are even used for advertisements
https://fitsmallbusiness.com/how-much-does-facebook-advertising-cost/ Ever thought how much it costs for companies to advertise on your favorite social media platforms such as Facebook? Better yet, have you ever thought of promoting your brand on social media? Well then, let’s explore how a top company like Facebook charges for advertisements. The simple answer is $0.65 per click. For instance, […]
Name Your Own Price
Up to now, all the market models we have encountered are all seller-oriented. However, buyers can also lead the transactions. Name-Your-Own-Price (NYOP) system is such a system under which buyers make a suggestion for a product’s price and then a seller decide to accept or reject this quoted price. As the Internet is continuously being […]
Matching Markets in Child Care
Source: https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/the-algorithm-for-accessing-child-care Child care has recently become a growing concern for many parents in Australia, with the process to obtain it involving applications to competitive centers with no guarantee of an offer or a good fit. In many ways, it seems unfair and closer to the process of applying for colleges or jobs rather than […]
Anti-Semitic Search Suggestions
Last December, Google was hit with a large scandal. When users typed in the phrase “are jews” into the search engine, Google automatically suggested “are jews evil” in which nine out of the ten top results lead to anti-Semitic hate sites. This most likely was not perpetrated by Google itself but nonetheless is in some […]
Game Theory and American Politics
I recently read this article on Bloomberg that discussed how game theory principles relate to the current political state in the US. This relates to class in a pretty obvious way: the article discusses various games similar to the ones we considered, namely the prisoner’s dilemma. The logic of the game is that both people […]
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