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The Connection between Superstardom and Information Cascades

This link connects to the concepts of power law and information cascades to explain the phenomenon of superstardom in the music industry during the 21st century. The article states that the evolution of technology, like online streaming, coupled with the fact that most superstars have unique voices result in a heavily skewed power law distribution […]

Social Media: A Stock Driver

https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0212/the-power-of-social-media-influencing-trading-and-the-markets.aspx   For the casual investor and social media user, it is not difficult to realize that the two things may be causally linked. In recent years we’ve seen a viral video of a CEO smoking marijuana cause the public company’s stock price to plummet and videos of the same company’s truck unveilings this year […]

Cash App and Network Effect

https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/11/13/squares-cash-app-is-close-to-breaking-even.aspx Square’s Cash App generated adjusted revenue of $159 million in the third quarter of the year, which is more than a quarter of the company’s total adjusted revenue. Cash App was able to gain users fast and with low cost because of the network effect. Cash App’s rate of downloads has surpassed its biggest […]

Information Cascades and Indonesia’s Slash and Burn Problem

https://www.todayonline.com/commentary/heres-economic-theory-curb-haze-causing-forest-fires-indonesia In the article linked above, Chew Soon Beng and Daniel Ong Qi Ming apply economic theory to explain the problematic slash and burn activity which plagues Indonesia today. According to these authors, the slash and burn farming technique has resulted in copious amounts of forest fires in Indonesia. This has particular consequences for the […]

How vaccines hinder disease spread

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2019/11/skipping-measles-vaccine-tied-triple-risk-disease-spread This article details the results of 16 years’ worth of data on reported measles cases and disease susceptibility, finding that unvaccinated people are three to four times more infectious than those with measles who have been vaccinated. Over 2,000 cases, ranging from 2001 to 2017, were analyzed in the study. Analysis showed that effective […]

“Kanye West’s secret to building a footwear empire to compete with Nike”

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-kanye-west-made-yeezy-brand-a-success-2018-4 This article discusses how Kanye West’s Yeezy shoes become a trend that can compete with Nike in just a few years. How does Yeezy become so popular that everyone wants a pair even when the price is so expensive? The success of Yeezy cannot be realized without Kanye West’s genius marketing strategy and her […]

Cocoon: Fostering Small and Personal Networks

https://qz.com/1753485/former-facebook-employees-are-creating-a-social-media-network-for-your-family/ While there are still many people who use social media as a tool to expand their social networks and gain as many likes, followers, and friends as possible, new trends have shown that many people have started to use social media to foster close relationships within a personal network. In inspiration of this new […]

Integrating the Mentally Ill is a Nash Equilibrium

In the article written by Lorenzo Canonico, the author goes on to explain how “human insanity” is what pushes us as a civilization and is the source of our genius. And yet, we as a society tend to marginalize those who are different. John Nash was labeled “insane” due to his schizophrenia, he was marginalized […]

Why removing Instagram likes is good for influencers, especially “micro-influencers”

When Instagram announced it was removing likes worldwide, millions of influencers gripped their phones in fear. Without likes – a key signal of popularity – how would influencers persuade brands of being the best fit for a sponsorship? Recently, brands have been targeting “micro-influencers” – individuals with smaller, yet sizable followings of 10,000-50,000 followers. Traditionally, […]

People Who Have Smaller Network are More Likely to Spreads Fake News on Twitter

Scientific analysis proofs that Twitter is excellent platform for spreading actual news and it is even better at spreading fake news unfortunately. Moreover, false claims about politics spread further than other category of news included in the analysis. In fact, numerically, it took the truth about six times as long as falsehood to reach 1500 […]

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