Power Laws Reveal Pattern for Distribution of Artistic Talent
The paper I read entitled “Power Laws in Art” analyzed artistic works from the 1500s to contemporary time to determine whether there exists a general pattern for the distribution of artistic talent. The authors analyzed historical bid data ranging from secondary markets of Amsterdam during the 1600s to Parisian auctions in the 1700s and worldwide […]
A Discussion on Marketing Campaigns & Tipping Points: How J&J Toothpaste Became Wildly Successful
https://www.jnj.com/our-heritage/how-johnson-johnson-helped-change-toothpaste-history-and-inspired-better-oral-hygiene In this article, Margaret Gurowitz, the Chief Historian of Johnson & Johnson, describes how Johnson & Johnson inspired people to brush their teeth through the product, Zonweiss. Reading the story of how Zonweiss became popular, I immediately made several connections between the product’s successful marketing campaign and the concept of tipping points. Zonweiss was […]
Influencers are Changing Advertisement
This article discusses the reasons for using influencers on social media to advertise. Creating a product that gains attention is best advertised by someone who gets a lot of attention and is trusted by many. Influencers are like celebrities in a commercial, but better. It does not feel like a commercial, it feels like a […]
The Folly of the Prisoner’s Dilemma
Everyone’s heard of the prisoner’s dilemma, it’s one of the first concepts students learn in game theory. Even if people that have not formally learned have probably heard of it many times in the course of their life. However, studies now say that it may be extremely misleading to people when making decisions and the […]
Predicting Cascades on Social Media
http://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/bakshy11influencers.pdf In this paper, the authors investigate quantifying influence on twitter by tracking cascades. One important finding of the study was that predictions of which particular user or URL will generate large cascades are relatively unreliable. They discuss a concept of word-of-mouth diffusion. Word-of-mouth diffusion, as it sounds is the process of spreading the influence […]
Network Diffusion and the Growth of ‘Subtle Asian Traits’
‘https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/life/culture/article/2018/11/14/we-need-talk-about-subtle-asian-traits’ This article discusses the meteoric rise of the Facebook meme page ‘Subtle Asian Traits’, a Facebook group that started in September between 12 Melbourne students and has amassed a following over 639,000 strong in little over two months. The article cites that the reason for the page’s success was the strong community-building aspect of […]
Rain and Social Contagion
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0090315 While not very recent, a study published by researchers at from the University of California San Diego found that social networks amplified social contagion and generally made the overall global emotional state more synchronous. Their study collected and correlated data on the location of rainfall to positive and negative social media posts made […]
Juul: A Networked Coordinated Game
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/1/17286638/juul-vaping-e-cigarette https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/health/juul-ecigarettes-vaping-teenagers.html Juul Labs, the company producing the small “USB-shaped” e-cigarette has been at the receiving end of public backlash for the past few months. The company created the Juul with the original intent of having the device serve as an alternative to smoking cigarettes, that did away with the harmful tobacco and other ingredients […]
What is Twitter, a Social Network or a News Media?
Twitter is comprised of 41.7 million users with 1.37 billion social relations. Users are ranked by the number of followers to identify influentials. Twitter will track phrases, words, and hashtags that are most used and will post them under the title of “trending topics”. The top users with the most followers in this network are […]
MIT Study: How can we use SIR models to predict the source of viruses in computer networks?
https://dspace.mit.edu/openaccess-disseminate/1721.1/63150 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/06/antivirus-software-fails-catch-attacks-security-expert-symantec In lecture, we are beginning to discuss the spread of diseases from person to person. We have discussed how contagion works in contact networks. An interesting application I am going to explore is the “transmission” and spread of viruses through computer networks. Computer viruses are designed to spread and replicate, using network connections […]
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