Discover magazine recently had an interesting article the connectedness of the blogosphere. Since the web is so dynamic, with new blogs being created almost constantly (about one every 2 seconds) and outdated blogs being deleted/disconnected from the connected component of the blogosphere at a similar (but much slower) rate, it is hard to model […]

Network Effects and Comeptition: An Empirical Analysis of the Home Video Game Industry
An article published a little while back in Wiley InterScience takes a very interesting look into the role network effects and externalities play in the video game industry. How does network size (user base) aid or harm a major competitor in this industry? […]

In this blog the author Scott Sanders discusses how the rapid advancement of new technologies is allowing a new type of collective swarming to occur. In his post Sanders argues that newer communication tools such as blogs, wiki, and mobile phones have allowed individuals to reorder their lives and coordinate actions in a previously […]

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/54380.html
 
            In his article, “Information Asymmetry: Shattered by Technology”, Theodore F. di Stefano gives some general information about how you, as a buyer, can avoid getting ripped off by instances of asymmetry of information. In terms of the auto market, healthcare, trading stocks and getting a mortgage, his central argument is that the best way […]

StumbleUpon is a webservice which allows users to surf interesting sites based on links it feeds users via a browser toolbar. While this is clearly not the same exercise as searching for websites based on content, it does provide users with a way to find relevant information about certain channels which are popular within some […]

One commonly cited example of the network effect is the battle between two video formats in the 1980’s: VHS and Beta. We are lucky enough to be in the middle of a similar battle right now, in the form of HD DVD versus Blu-ray. Unlike VHS vs. Beta, neither of the two new […]

In class we discussed the need for a business to create a cascade by forcing the demand for the product past an early critical point. If such an accomplishment is reached, then users will most likely continue demanding the product until another critical “point of saturation” is reached. The key issue was how […]

“The Economics of Programming Languages”
“Programming Language Popularity”
Author David Welton analyzes the important and subtle economic characteristics of programming languages in the two articles above. He states that, though languages can be very useful regardless of the number of people using them, most of them gain strength through a large reinforcing network of users. Also, his […]

Recently, much work has been done to investigate the structure and dynamics of large social networks. Through datasets from online social networking sites, computer scientists are given an unprecedented look into the networks many of us form everyday. One of the key research questions that has arisen is about the growth of online […]

While doing one of my normal perusals of Wikipedia, I came across some assertions on the value of social networks relative to their sizes. Metcalfe’s law, which was originally applied to early Ethernet networks, states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users. This makes […]