New data from ComScore Inc. shows that Google’s click-through rate growth has almost slowed to a stop. The rate increase for January was zero when compared to January 2007 and only a 3 percent year over year increase in February. These rate increases are abysmal when compared to prior rate increases only a few months […]
Archive for March, 2008
The Diet Cascade
Saturday, March 29th, 2008 11:19 am
Written by: FDIV
As we discussed in class, there are many things today that are examples of information cascades. One of the most prominent issues in our image self conscious society is about weight and diet. This blog post from a columnist from the New York Times talks about the obsession with low-fat diets and weight-watching. The columnist […]
Posted in Topics: Education
“The Standing Ovation Problem”
Saturday, March 29th, 2008 1:13 am
Written by: lindo
It took me a while to find a topic related to information cascades that wasn’t already in the blog, but I eventually came across a 16 page research paper by John H. Miller and Scott E. Page of the Sante Fe Institute about modeling standing ovations. It turns out that an information cascade model […]
Posted in Topics: Education
Information Cascade in Dietary Research
Friday, March 28th, 2008 10:44 pm
Written by: nodeN
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/how-the-low-fat-low-fact-cascade-just-keeps-rolling-along/
The article that I’ve chosen for this post (first link) is about how the medical world was duped into the cascading idea that a low-fat diet would lower the risk of heart disease. John Tierney, a science columnist for The New York Times, cites Gary Taubes’ book, Good Calories, Bad Calories to explain the steps […]
The Fine Line Between Permitting and Banning Google Bombs
Friday, March 28th, 2008 10:39 pm
Written by: bogus6541
As more people use search engines, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become a profitable way for website owners looking to boost their ranking in organic search results. Some companies have made SEO into a business by learning the intricate details of a particular search engine’s algorithm and tailoring a client’s webpage for prime placement. Clearly, […]
Posted in Topics: Education
The Housing Bubble: An Example of an Information Cascade
Friday, March 28th, 2008 9:25 pm
Written by: blah1234
Even the experts missed the housing bubble
by Robert J. Shiller
Mar 05, 2008
http://www.ohio.com/editorial/commentary/16246947.html?page=all&c=y
This article starts out by summarizing how Alan Greenspan failed to predict the recent housing bubble, and how it is responsible for the collapsing of financial markets in the United States. The article explores how something like this could slip under the radar of […]
Posted in Topics: Education
Groupthink
Friday, March 28th, 2008 9:04 pm
Written by: intmain
An application of information cascading is groupthink. Cohesive groups promote a series of ideas and socially ostracize those with opposing viewpoints. Other members lose incentive to hold opposing views as this can lead to embarrassments if they are seen as foolish or against the group in some way. Irving Janus classifies eight symptoms of groupthink:
illusions of […]
Posted in Topics: Education, social studies
Opening up Social Networks: Broadening Information Beyond Facebook and MySpace
Friday, March 28th, 2008 8:45 pm
Written by: harapalb
Blog Post Number 2
Slap in the Facebook:
It’s Time for Social Networks to Open Up
http://www.wired.com/software/webservices/news/2007/08/open_social_net
Basically in this article, the author talks about how there are social networks all over the Internet that allow for the sharing of information from person to person or through various relationships. One of these websites that he cites is Facebook, which […]
Posted in Topics: Education
Shill Bidding: Coping with the Flaws of the VCG Mechanism in Online Auctions
Friday, March 28th, 2008 8:44 pm
Written by: someone
Although the VCG mechanism reproduces market-clearing prices in second-price auctions, it has several shortcomings that pose great threats to reliant sites such as eBay, Google, and Yahoo. Sellers sometimes use shill bids to artificially drive up the price of goods and provoke bidding wars among auction participants. This behavior is notoriously difficult for […]
Posted in Topics: Education
Commodities: The Next Market Bubble
Friday, March 28th, 2008 8:38 pm
Written by: andy3033
Lately, many observers and pundits are glued to the rear-view mirror, fixated on the implosion of residential real estate and excessive leverage, the last two market bubbles, wondering how in the world we could not have seen them developing. At the same time, investors are dumping financial assets they never understood in the first place […]
Posted in Topics: Education
Posted in Topics: Education
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