Instagram and Its Experiment in Reducing Network Effects
Link: Instagram tests hiding Like counts globally One of the critical features for measuring the success of content on Instagram is how many likes a post receives. The number of likes determines how many users will see the post as their algorithm takes the number of likes in account to determine the most relevant media […]
Information Cascade in Swarms
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3395630/ Information cascade can be described as a phenomena that occurs mostly during the decision making process, where many people respond to something in the same way from information of a past person’s decision. This phenomena can be seen in many places in the real world, from stocks to social media. In this blog post […]
Health Insurance: increasing price transparency, decreasing asymmetry
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-releases-transparency-rule-in-hospital-pricing-11573825649?mod=article_inline The Trump administration released a rule such that “hospitals and insurers would be forced to disclose their secret negotiated rates for the first time” starting in 2021. These rates, whether facility fees or drug prices, are not publicized currently and held privately between hospitals and insurers through contracts and confidentiality agreements. Both policy […]
Global Protests and the Rapid Diffusion of Ideas
News source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-50123743 As the year draws to a close, it is worth reminiscing on the numerous national protests that have occurred in various countries around the world. Many of these protests, most notably those in Hong Kong, Iran, Iraq, and Bolivia, have gathered widespread international attention. While each protest has its own […]
Celebrities and Cascades
Blog Post # 3 https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f7151 Celebrities have been known to having a big influence on the consumer world. People around the world will do anything to look, feel, and act like celebrities. Even going as far as listening to them about medical advice which they are not at all authorized to so. There […]
New Companies, New Tricks: Network Effects Just Aren’t Enough
https://hbr.org/2016/05/why-winner-takes-all-thinking-doesnt-apply-to-silicon-valley Nowadays, we use multiple platforms in our daily lives, like Amazon to find the perfect stocking stuffer, the Microsoft suite to get our assignments done, and an Uber to get home without having to wait for sometimes-slow public transportation. But the question really is, how did Amazon get to be so popular in the […]