Economics 204 has made apparent the importance of networks as a crucial component of the world. Whether its in the development of the internet and how its original structure amongst a few universities has developed to bring information to billions of people across the world, or the basic networks people develop amongst themselves which facilitates […]

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=97779
This article from the Turkish Daily News compares a current, controversial topic occurring in Turkish society to the prisoner’s dilemma zero-sum game. The discussion is about the ramifications of the move to lift a ban nationwide on students wearing head-covering scarves on university campuses. The article begins by describing what a polarizing issue this has […]

http://machinist.salon.com/feature/2008/03/07/clay_shirkey_interview/
The recent increase of the Internet’s ability to create global, ad hoc groups that can amass enormous influence over social, political, and economic institutions signals a significant shift in the power of the medium and, more broadly, all media. This is the argument of Clay Shriky’s new book, “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of […]

Earlier in the semester we discussed that we live in a small world, in which there are, on average, “six degrees of separation” between all individuals. However, in aSmallWorld (ASW), an exclusive online social network, everyone is connected by at most three degrees of separation. The following is the site’s description of itself:
ASMALLWORLD is […]

The burgeoning social-networking site, Facebook, is attracting the attention of software developers looking to piggyback on the website’s recent success. According to the New York Times, Facebook has offered its vast market as way for developers to make money. The key to the bank lies in applications or “apps” as the hipsters that […]

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2005/03/12/stories/2005031208552000.htm
The above article talks about the effect that walking has on world cricket. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket
In short, cricket is a game played between two teams where, much like baseball, there exists a batsman, a bowler who throws the ball at the batsman, and the fielders who try […]

Throughout the course, I have enjoyed the fact that our social networks are compared to “harder” sciences (potential energy of an auction or the current of the “water cycle” of PageRank). As a biologist, I am more familiar with the concepts of physics and math than I am with those of economics or sociology, […]

In a past homework assignment, we looked at the notion of a gatekeeper in a network. The intuition behind our definition was that a gatekeeper in a network–much like a literal one–is in an advantageous position with respect to information flow. However, when we looked at negotiations and power in networks of human subjects, we […]

http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/economy_finances/report-79659.html 
Research conducted at the University of Bath, UK, and University of St Gallen, Switzerland showed that many corporations are wasting millions of dollars by offering contracts to celebrities to appear in advertisements for their products.  The study showed that the use of ordinary people in advertisements is more effective than high profile, global superstars such […]

A new Australian online dating website utilizes the philosophy of “six degrees of separation,” which we previously discussed in class. This idea proclaims that everyone in the world is separated by only six other people. Contrary to many other online dating services, this new site (MeetMyFriend) “allows users to introduce their single friends to the […]