The Strawberry Dress Information Cascade
An information cascade is when those in a group make public decisions one at a time, so all the previous decisions are public information, but the processes behind how those decisions were made are private. Fashion trends, especially in the era of social media, are examples of information cascades. When one person, an influencer or […]
How Game Theory Informs Product Management
As a product manager or someone interested in product management, you may have heard of concepts like product launches, feature prioritization, and competitor analyses. Interestingly, game theory can directly inform our decisions and mental models as we build and scale compelling products. Utilizing concepts like Nash Equilibrium and anticipating the movements of our competitors in […]
Solving a Restaurant Conflict Using Game Theory
Pasta, Pizza, Waffles, Seafood, Steak: the opportunities for a next meal are always inexhaustible. Pair this with a group of friends and you should expect an hour of debate to take place before a decision is made. But, with the known preferences of one’s friends, is it possible to shorten this decision time? Prashant Mudgal […]
Google Switches AdSense to First-Price Auction
Up until now, Google has been using a second-price auction format for its Adsense for Content, Video, and Gaming. They did this for media buyers looking to bid on ad inventory. Second-price auctions have been the most widespread model in digital advertising, as they ensure advertisers the confidence to bid their best value without having […]
React, SEO, and Pagerank
https://rubygarage.org/blog/seo-for-react-websites https://proxify.io/articles/react-seo React.js is arguably at the forefront of modern web development, being one of the most well received and popular frontend frameworks because of its incredible under the hood magic. However, up until as recently as 2015, there was a big problem with React: Google’s web crawler couldn’t read pages built in React. […]
Information Cascades and Node Popularity
Information cascades occur when people make decisions sequentially, where later people watching the actions of earlier people infer something about what the earlier people know. It is not mindless imitation, but rather the result of drawing rational inferences from limited information. So how do people make decisions on city-wide activities or answer the question of […]
Market Clearing Prices in Commodity Markets
We talk very extensively about market clearing prices in class, but the real-life implications of market clearing prices have very large effects on consumers and markets. A good example of this is in commodities markets, where the processes we use in class happen instantaneously every day in order to set prices. Commodities are goods that […]
The Muddy Business of Mandis
When we go to the store, we buy what we want. But what happens when there is only one item and multiple people who want it? Or when there is a limited supply of the item, but many potential buyers, how do we resolve who gets the item and who doesn’t? Such questions relating to […]
Facebook’s Use of a Modified VCG Procedure for Organic Ad Placement
The Vickrey – Clarke – Groves procedure is a way of allocating multiple items to multiple sellers that assigns items in a socially optimal way. It functions in a similar fashion to a sealed-bid second price auction but is generalized to be able to distribute more than one item. This procedure has been developed by […]
Implication of Information Cascades in Real Life
Consider the following situation: you are driving on the route which you take every day to go home. However, you realize the route is under construction, and you are forced to turn off the road. Based on your own judgment, you want to turn right but all the cars in front of you are turning […]
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