PageRank and Nofollows
PageRank is a technique used for dictating the order of websites being presented in web searches. A recent article from the Search Engine Journal discusses how the nofollow attribute in HTML links prevent PageRank from accounting commented links into its calculations. The nofollow feature, which was implemented in 2005, was designed to prevent spam from […]
The People vs. Amazon’s Sponsored Search Market
Think back to the last time you searched for something on Amazon. What came up at the top of the page? Let’s say you searched for “shampoo.” Likely, you were initially presented with a list of prevalent brands like Pantene, Garnier, and Dove. This is no coincidence. Amazon has been increasingly incorporating ads into its […]
Net Neutrality on the Chopping Block
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/net-neutrality-on-the-chopping-block/ Net neutrality has always been a governmental debate over how much control should internet providers have over which content the people should be allowed to view. This has always been a worldwide debate, as the reversal of net neutrality would result in internet providers being able to not only control what one can […]
tipping points in music
Recently, in class we have been discussing tipping points in markets. The concept of tipping points also translates to many other areas, for example: music. In the paper “Playing with the Edge: Tipping Points and the Role of Tonality”, the author Elaine Chew explores tipping points in music performances. The paper goes into the various […]
Information Cascades in Movie Marketing
Subjective art forms and media constitute an interesting network in which there is (typically) no concrete signal to attribute quality to; People generally have different perceptions/tastes so they will give and receive mixed signals. According to research conducted at UPenn, this may create dichotomous information cascades: people may follow the actions of the crowd/general public […]
Highways get bigger, traffic doesn’t get better
Despite ever increasing highway width, it is hard to break what is known as the “iron law of congestion”. This Bloomberg article delves into some reasons why this is the case, namely, political motivations and incentive structures. Generally, whenever a resource decreases in cost, it will be used in more new ways, in this case […]
Selling Keywords, Targeted Advertising, and The Social Dilemma
Netflix’s recent documentary, The Social Dilemma, exposes how technology companies are using algorithms to maximize clicks and therefore profit, at the expense of our free will. Every click in today’s world can be monetized. Advertising has developed from merely paying to show an ad into now paying per click that the ad generates. This evolution […]
PageRank in the NBA
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1155/2021/6641242 PageRank is a system used by Google in order to rank different web pages. Each webpage can be thought of as a node, and if a web page links to another web page, this connection can be thought of as an edge or an arrow. An update in this algorithm consists of […]
Information cascades in agricultural improvements diffusion
The paper looks at 35 research studies conducted across the United States. It found that there were multiple steps to the “adoption process” of new agricultural ideas. These included awareness, interest, evaluation, testing, and adopting. The study found that the majority of farmers were made aware and started garnering interest mainly from mass media and […]
The Spread of Misinformation in Social Media as an Information Cascade
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167923622000902 The spread of information, particularly on social media, creates a larger information cascade the wider the information spreads. Each user has access to an incredible amount of information, and thus has the power to spread said content. Inevitably, within this vast amount of information is lies, misinformation—potentially with malicious intent. In cases such as […]
keep looking »