Networks, Crowds, and Markets

The increasing complexity of networks today, require the development of a systematic framework for their study. The classic graph theoretic approach provides only structural information for the underlying network. What are the "laws" that dictate the evolution of the latter? How do the individual decisions of every network entity affect this evolution?

Professors D. Easley and J. Kleinberg, provide a thorough investigation of the above fundamental questions in their very recent book entitled: "Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World". They borrow ideas from a set of disciplines that span a huge spectrum of knowledge, ranging from applied math to sociology. Going forward needed is a holistic view of complex networks and a new paradigm of thinking in network analysis, and this book definitely works towards this direction.

Was Ptolemy the first researcher to use social media?

This item in Der Spiegel (English) describes how researchers used Ptolemy's ancient map to date some of Germany's cities. What caught my eye was this:

It seems surprising that an academic living along the Nile had such detailed knowledge of northern Europe -- and it's certain that Ptolemy never took his own measurements in the Germanic lands. Instead, researchers believe he drew on Roman traders' travel itineraries, analyzed seafarers' notes and consulted maps used by Roman legions operating to the north.

So basically, Ptolemy was doing what these researchers in public health were doing:

Culotta and two student assistants analyzed more than 500 million Twitter messages over the eight-month period of August 2009 to May 2010, collected using Twitter’s application programming interface (API). By using a small number of keywords to track rates of influenza-related messages on Twitter, the team was able to forecast future influenza rates.

What was once old is new again!

Adam Perer talk

Adam Perer gave a talk at LRDC this morning in which he discussed and described some of his research related to the analysis of social networks. The tools he describes look very interesting to many in the SIS community, in particular Social Action. He also mentioned an open-source Microsoft Excel extension that can be used for social network analysis called NodeXL. This looks as though it would be useful to those in SIS doing this kind of work.