Philanthropy in higher education and the rich-get-richer phenomenon
In the past several decades, the number of donations to educational institutions over $100 million has increased an enormous amount. Gladwell attributes this resurgence in educational philanthropy to a donation in 1992 by Hank Rowan to Glassboro State College (now named Rowan University). At the time Glassboro State College was on the brink of bankruptcy […]
The Bandwagon Effect and Information Cascades
Link: https://web.colby.edu/cogblog/2017/04/05/are-you-a-victim-of-the-bandwagon-effect/ The article above discusses the impact the “bandwagon effect” has on the decisions we make day-to-day, from deciding where to eat to what to watch. Specifically the article discusses the fact that most people rarely ever stop to fully think before making their decisions and instead “lazily” make their decisions based on what […]
Ad Manipulation as a Method of Spreading Misinformation
This post is inspired by the following article by The Guardian. The article talks about the study that reveals that the majority (54%) of Facebook ads against vaccination are funded by just two organizations: Robert F Kennedy Jr’s World Mercury Project and Larry Cook’s Stop Mandatory. The article then explains how these organizations use Facebook’s […]
Information Cascades in Instagram
Link: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/11/tech/instagram-likes-going-away/index.html This article was about how Instagram, a very popular app and full of social media influencers, was attempting a test where likes for posts were hidden to the users. The total number of likes would be hidden, and while the original poster will be able to see their own likes, their followers won’t […]
Network Effects in a new social networking site
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/11/16/wikipedia-jimmy-wales-facebook-social-network-competition/ This article details the establishment of a new social networking site by Wikipedia’s co-founder named Jimmy Wales. This new site is called WT: Social and differentiates itself from other social media sites by having a monthly subscription with a price, therefore eliminating the need for ads. This helps combat fake news on the social […]
Network Effects Matter Less Than They Used To
https://hbr.org/2018/06/why-network-effects-matter-less-than-they-used-to This article argues for the position that Network Effects do not matter as much as they used to with the advent of mobile technology. The author argues that because so many valuable companies and products are now intangible, the primary platforms that exhibit network effects now are on mobile devices. Many mobile applications do […]
5G and network diffusion
Source: https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2019/10/28/why-the-world-needs-to-cooperate-on-5g/ The recent development and implementation of 5G networks are potentially transforming the way people connect in their life. Providing a leap on speed, 5G technology brings people closer to realizing automation, the Internet of Things (IoT), etc. However, with its strong capacity comes controversies in almost every aspect of the global competition. […]
Evidence of Power Laws in the Real World?
https://www.quantamagazine.org/scant-evidence-of-power-laws-found-in-real-world-networks-20180215/ The article begins by outlineing the history of the notion of “scale-free” networks, networks that follow a power law. Purely random networks do not follow power laws, but evidence of complex networks abidding by these laws has been arising over the past 3 decades. It appears that the structure and evolution of complex networks […]
Information Cascades- follow the leaders
https://www.adsavvy.org/understanding-the-human-herd-mentality/ This article outlines a study that set out to investigate the extent to which individual’s follow the actions and decisions of others in a group setting. In the study, researches performed a group experiment whereby they asked participants to walk around a room randomly, without communicating with one another. Only a small number of […]
Social media and network effects
https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/03/reverse-network-effects-todays-social-networks-can-fail-grow-larger/ This article brings an interesting perspective on what we commonly assume network effects to be. It highlights the dynamics of the idea, that it is not always a positive relationship. Like in class, the article discusses the idea of network effects as a somewhat straightforward idea that if the entity that is being used […]
« go back — keep looking »