The semantic web is the target of a great deal of skepticism, but some projects are starting to make use of its principles to some of the most valuable resources on the internet even more valuable.  DBpedia, a part of the LinkingOpenData project, connects wikipedia with a number of other sources such as MusicBrainz, Project Gutenburg, flickr […]

Let’s face it, after hearing about Spitzer’s adventures at The Emperor’s Club a couple of days ago, the first website most of you visited was not CNN.com, but MySpace - I know I did. After spending a couple (ok, give me more credit than that - 15) minutes looking at “Kristen’s” bikini picture, a thought […]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/67381-cpc-advertising-takes-its-toll-on-google?source=financialcontent
In class, we have recently been discussing how Google auctions off its advertising slots. In short, Google uses a General Second Price bid auction (GSP) where the advertisers report some value per click on their advertisement. This value is taken as a bid which then is used to establish prices for the slot. […]

New Technology Protects Internet Advertisers From Click Fraud
In class this week we learned about search engines such as Google and Yahoo which hold auctions for keyword search results and have advertisement placement based on a pay-per-click process. Google says that “You’re charged only if someone clicks your ad, not when your ad is displayed”. […]

Watching Monty Python the other day, I found my thoughts wandering once again back to Networks 204 and Gladwell’s description of a syphilis epidemic in Baltimore: how it spread from the projects along local highways during summer months and contracted during the winter. Explicitly drawing a connection between contagious viral diseases and transportation networks […]

On February 15th Stephen J. Dubner posted an interesting compilation of opinions regarding the net effect of the technological boom of social networking on his the Freakonomics NY Times blog.  He asked a variety of renowned experts on social networking and technology through their latest studies at some of the leading universities in the United […]

Professor Easley’s lecture on online advertisements can be closely related to the New York Times article “Where Every Ad Knows Your Name” by Louise Story: link
Many big Internet companies, such as AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google, are expanding into the advertisements business. Since these companies collect a ton of information on users, a thought […]

Ryan Thomas’ dissertation talks about the advantages of implementing a cognitive network. Unlike many of the networks and game theory methods discussed in class this network runs on the notion of what is best for all parties involve instead or being centralized on each individual node in the network. The concept of learn and rationalizing […]

This was only briefly mentioned in class in the first lecture, but one property of a dynamic network is the death of nodes. Bruce Schneier comments on an internet-specific form of nodal death called “link rot.” Link rot is, quite simply, the disappearance of information linked to on the internet.
There are two general […]

How Do They Track Us?
Expanding on Professor Easley’s lecture discussing keyword-based Web advertising, Louise Story of the NY Times authored a blog post entitled “How Do They Track You? Let Us Count the Ways” as a supplement to her article “To Aim Ads, Web is Keeping Closer Eye on What You Click” [which was posted […]