Information Spread Over an Internet-mediated Social Network: Phases, Speed, Width, and Effects of Promotion (1507.06380v1)

Abstract: In this study, we looked at the effect of promotion in the speed and width of spread of information on the Internet by tracking the diffusion of news articles over a social network. Speed of spread means the number of readers that the news has reached in a given time, while width of spread means how far the story has travelled from the news originator within the social network. After analyzing six stories in a 30-hour time span, we found out that the lifetime of a story's popularity among the members of the social network has three phases: Expansion, Front-page, and Saturation. Expansion phase starts when a story is published and the article spreads from a source node to nodes within a connected component of the social network. Front-page phase happens when a news aggregator promotes the story in its front page resulting to the story's faster rate of spread among the connected nodes while at the same time spreading the article to nodes outside the original connected component of the social network. Saturation phase is when the story ages and its rate of spread within the social network slows down, suggesting popularity saturation among the nodes. Within these three phases, we observed minimal changes on the width of information spread as suggested by relatively low increase of the width of the spread's diameter within the social network. We see that this paper provides the various stakeholders a first-hand empirical data for modeling, designing, and improving the current web-based services, specifically the IT educators for designing and improving academic curricula, and for improving the current web-enabled deployment of knowledge and online evaluation of skills.

• The paper identifies three distinct phases—expansion, front-page, and saturation—that capture the dynamic lifecycle of information spread.
• It quantifies spread speed and network width, showing that promotional activities greatly accelerate reach while marginally affecting overall network clustering.
• The methodology utilizes a custom network crawler on Digg to track real-time diffusion, offering insights for optimizing digital communication strategies.

Information Spread Over an Internet-mediated Social Network

This paper analyzes the dynamics of information dissemination within internet-mediated social networks, focusing on the phases, speed, and width of information spread, as well as the impact of promotional activities. Observations are based on tracking the diffusion of news articles over a specific social network.

Phases of Information Spreading

The research identifies three distinct phases in the life cycle of information spread:

1. Expansion Phase: Initiated when a story is published, during which it spreads from a single source node to connected nodes within the same component. The speed of spread in this phase is observed to range from 1% to 12% of the network size per hour.
2. Front-page Phase: Triggered when a news aggregator promotes the story to its front page. This promotion accelerates the rate of spread, effectively reaching nodes outside of the initial connected component—contrary to traditional models—and raising the dissemination speed to between 3% and 23% per hour.
3. Saturation Phase: Occurs as the story ages, with a marked slowdown in the spread rate, suggesting that the information has reached a saturation point among network members, with speeds dropping to between 1% and 4% per hour.

Speed and Width of Information Spread

The paper quantitatively evaluates the speed, $V$, as the number of new readers reached per unit time, and the width, $W$, as the extent of the network component engaged:

• Speed, $V$: Identified by the immediate change in readership, defined mathematically in terms of network member engagement.
• Width, $W$: Measured by computing the network diameter, focusing on the connected nodes influenced by the information.

While promotion incites significant surges in $V$, the width, $W$, appears to exhibit minimal changes throughout the lifecycle, indicating a rather clustered spread pattern.

Methodology

The experiment involved tracing six distinct stories by employing a custom network crawler to gather data from a social web platform termed as 'Digg'. This crawler extracted details such as digger identities and friend connections, facilitating the construction of an adjacency graph to simulate and capture the spread dynamics intricately.

The methodology emphasized capturing temporal snapshots at hourly intervals using metrics derived from a constructed adjacency matrix, allowing the detailed tracking of real-time dissemination patterns.

Implications and Future Directions

This empirical paper provides substantial insights into modeling social network dynamics, specifically offering quantitative evidence for the different phases of information diffusion. Future work could explore adaptive strategies to leverage these dynamics to optimize content promotion on social platforms, potentially considering more complex models incorporating relationships of varying strengths.

The structural understanding gleaned here could significantly enhance educational and commercial applications by adapting curriculum design and online skill assessments to better align with these identified phases of information spread.

Conclusion

This research delineates the distinct phases dramatic in the life cycle of digitally propagated stories, emphasizing the effective role of promotion in amplifying reach and speed. These insights lay a foundational understanding for enhancing current digital communication protocols, offering a potent avenue for engineering advances in social computing and digital communication technologies.