Forgot the link. Sorry

http://www.uaf.edu/northern/big_world.html 

Forgot the link. Sorry

http://www.uaf.edu/northern/big_world.html 

In class we discussed the small world phenomenon and how it was highly possible to relate one person to another in an average of six degrees. This article disputes that concept. According to Kleinfeld, Milgram fails to account for some of the information given by his experiment. The first dispute comes over the completion rate of chains during Milgram’s small world experiment, which was reportedly only 29%. That meant that although those that did connect did so in around 6 steps, 71% of the starters never reached the target. This isn’t to say that they couldn’t reach the target but perhaps it would have taken them longer as the chains never even finished.

            In subsequent studies Milgram’s experiments showed large gaps among racial and social classes. In one of his later experiments Milgram selected starters from high, middle, and low income groups in Ohio and gave them targets in Los Angeles. Though the article does mention that the completion rates were to low to give any true information, it was noteworthy that no lone income starter completed a chain to any target other than another low income person. It would seem that social affluence (aka larger income) makes people easier to target. This was also a problem with Milgram’s original experiment. He chose an affluent stockbroker in Boston. He would be much more likely to be highly connected, whereas if someone more isolated were chosen the separation would be greater.

            He did just such an experiment. The target was the wife of a divinity student. 60 documents were started in Wichita, Kansas. Of the 60 only 3 reached the woman with and average path length of 8 which is substantially longer than the popular 6 degrees. Milgram’s later experiments also encountered a racial divide. He used white starters in Los Angeles and both black and white targets in New York. 33% of white targets received the package whereas only 13% of the black targets were reached. These numbers show an obvious racial divide in the six degree theory. It is hard to explain exactly why any of these events occurred. Milgram’s six degree theory may be correct but there are so many other factors that seem to have been completely unaccounted for.

In class we discussed the small world phenomenon and how it was highly possible to relate one person to another in an average of six degrees. This article disputes that concept. According to Kleinfeld, Milgram fails to account for some of the information given by his experiment. The first dispute comes over the completion rate of chains during Milgram’s small world experiment, which was reportedly only 29%. That meant that although those that did connect did so in around 6 steps, 71% of the starters never reached the target. This isn’t to say that they couldn’t reach the target but perhaps it would have taken them longer as the chains never even finished.

            In subsequent studies Milgram’s experiments showed large gaps among racial and social classes. In one of his later experiments Milgram selected starters from high, middle, and low income groups in Ohio and gave them targets in Los Angeles. Though the article does mention that the completion rates were to low to give any true information, it was noteworthy that no lone income starter completed a chain to any target other than another low income person. It would seem that social affluence (aka larger income) makes people easier to target. This was also a problem with Milgram’s original experiment. He chose an affluent stockbroker in Boston. He would be much more likely to be highly connected, whereas if someone more isolated were chosen the separation would be greater.

            He did just such an experiment. The target was the wife of a divinity student. 60 documents were started in Wichita, Kansas. Of the 60 only 3 reached the woman with and average path length of 8 which is substantially longer than the popular 6 degrees. Milgram’s later experiments also encountered a racial divide. He used white starters in Los Angeles and both black and white targets in New York. 33% of white targets received the package whereas only 13% of the black targets were reached. These numbers show an obvious racial divide in the six degree theory. It is hard to explain exactly why any of these events occurred. Milgram’s six degree theory may be correct but there are so many other factors that seem to have been completely unaccounted for.

In class we discussed the small world phenomenon and how it was highly possible to relate one person to another in an average of six degrees. This article disputes that concept. According to Kleinfeld, Milgram fails to account for some of the information given by his experiment. The first dispute comes over the completion rate of chains during Milgram’s small world experiment, which was reportedly only 29%. That meant that although those that did connect did so in around 6 steps, 71% of the starters never reached the target. This isn’t to say that they couldn’t reach the target but perhaps it would have taken them longer as the chains never even finished.

            In subsequent studies Milgram’s experiments showed large gaps among racial and social classes. In one of his later experiments Milgram selected starters from high, middle, and low income groups in Ohio and gave them targets in Los Angeles. Though the article does mention that the completion rates were to low to give any true information, it was noteworthy that no lone income starter completed a chain to any target other than another low income person. It would seem that social affluence (aka larger income) makes people easier to target. This was also a problem with Milgram’s original experiment. He chose an affluent stockbroker in Boston. He would be much more likely to be highly connected, whereas if someone more isolated were chosen the separation would be greater.

            He did just such an experiment. The target was the wife of a divinity student. 60 documents were started in Wichita, Kansas. Of the 60 only 3 reached the woman with and average path length of 8 which is substantially longer than the popular 6 degrees. Milgram’s later experiments also encountered a racial divide. He used white starters in Los Angeles and both black and white targets in New York. 33% of white targets received the package whereas only 13% of the black targets were reached. These numbers show an obvious racial divide in the six degree theory. It is hard to explain exactly why any of these events occurred. Milgram’s six degree theory may be correct but there are so many other factors that seem to have been completely unaccounted for.

In class we discussed the small world phenomenon and how it was highly possible to relate one person to another in an average of six degrees. This article disputes that concept. According to Kleinfeld, Milgram fails to account for some of the information given by his experiment. The first dispute comes over the completion rate of chains during Milgram’s small world experiment, which was reportedly only 29%. That meant that although those that did connect did so in around 6 steps, 71% of the starters never reached the target. This isn’t to say that they couldn’t reach the target but perhaps it would have taken them longer as the chains never even finished.

            In subsequent studies Milgram’s experiments showed large gaps among racial and social classes. In one of his later experiments Milgram selected starters from high, middle, and low income groups in Ohio and gave them targets in Los Angeles. Though the article does mention that the completion rates were to low to give any true information, it was noteworthy that no lone income starter completed a chain to any target other than another low income person. It would seem that social affluence (aka larger income) makes people easier to target. This was also a problem with Milgram’s original experiment. He chose an affluent stockbroker in Boston. He would be much more likely to be highly connected, whereas if someone more isolated were chosen the separation would be greater.

            He did just such an experiment. The target was the wife of a divinity student. 60 documents were started in Wichita, Kansas. Of the 60 only 3 reached the woman with and average path length of 8 which is substantially longer than the popular 6 degrees. Milgram’s later experiments also encountered a racial divide. He used white starters in Los Angeles and both black and white targets in New York. 33% of white targets received the package whereas only 13% of the black targets were reached. These numbers show an obvious racial divide in the six degree theory. It is hard to explain exactly why any of these events occurred. Milgram’s six degree theory may be correct but there are so many other factors that seem to have been completely unaccounted for.

In class we discussed the small world phenomenon and how it was highly possible to relate one person to another in an average of six degrees. This article disputes that concept. According to Kleinfeld, Milgram fails to account for some of the information given by his experiment. The first dispute comes over the completion rate of chains during Milgram’s small world experiment, which was reportedly only 29%. That meant that although those that did connect did so in around 6 steps, 71% of the starters never reached the target. This isn’t to say that they couldn’t reach the target but perhaps it would have taken them longer as the chains never even finished.

            In subsequent studies Milgram’s experiments showed large gaps among racial and social classes. In one of his later experiments Milgram selected starters from high, middle, and low income groups in Ohio and gave them targets in Los Angeles. Though the article does mention that the completion rates were to low to give any true information, it was noteworthy that no lone income starter completed a chain to any target other than another low income person. It would seem that social affluence (aka larger income) makes people easier to target. This was also a problem with Milgram’s original experiment. He chose an affluent stockbroker in Boston. He would be much more likely to be highly connected, whereas if someone more isolated were chosen the separation would be greater.

            He did just such an experiment. The target was the wife of a divinity student. 60 documents were started in Wichita, Kansas. Of the 60 only 3 reached the woman with and average path length of 8 which is substantially longer than the popular 6 degrees. Milgram’s later experiments also encountered a racial divide. He used white starters in Los Angeles and both black and white targets in New York. 33% of white targets received the package whereas only 13% of the black targets were reached. These numbers show an obvious racial divide in the six degree theory. It is hard to explain exactly why any of these events occurred. Milgram’s six degree theory may be correct but there are so many other factors that seem to have been completely unaccounted for.

AIM as a Proxy in the Small-World Phenomenon

http://aimfight.com/

In class we discussed the small-world phenomenon (six degrees of separation) and how this result is not entirely surprising if exponential growth between steps are taken into account. The site http://aimfight.com/ gives you a score equal to the “sum of the current number of people online who have you listed as a buddy, out to three degrees.” Using this as a rough proxy for the real world, we can see two important points drawn in lecture, first that the effects of triadic closure drastically limits the number of connections gained from each additional degree of separation, and secondly that even with this limitation we can still connect a very large number of people with a couple of steps.

Right now there are 33 people online on my buddy list. If we use the most naive model then my score (number of “buddies” online, out to three degrees) should be roughly 33×33x33 or 36,000. However, my actual score falls far short of that, a measly 15,500. If I then reverse-calculate the number of unique “buddies” each of my “buddies” likely had, I come to an average value of 21 “buddies” each. This number is only about 66% of what I naively predicted, but explainable. My buddy list consists of three major groups: friends from Cornell, friends from high school, and others (family, work associates, etc.). If I assume an equal number of people in each group (which as of this moment is pretty accurate) and that everyone in each group is likely to be linked to everyone else in their group, then the value of 66% is actually almost mathematically intuitive. Each of my connections are only bringing in unique links from the other two groups, i.e. unique links from a “buddy” in my family group comes mainly from their college and high school groups (or whatever fitting analogous groups) and not from their family group. So, we see that triadic closure did have a major effect, even in this rough model.

The other point that can be drawn from this simple model is the reach of six degrees of separation. If we continue our calculation (of a factor of 21 growth at each step) then at 6 degrees, I should have a score of 140 million. Which is about 2.25% of the world population. Considering that it is 4am and only about a quarter of my “buddies” are online, the fact that only about 17% of the world population has internet, and that not everyone with internet (or even everyone I know) chooses to use the AOL instant messenger program, then I think that, it would not be too far of a stretch to say that at full potential, I could connect to the majority of internet users in six steps or less.

www.gmu.edu/departments/law/gmulawreview/issues/12-1/PDF/Pro%20Burtis.pdf

This article is a comment about the use of game theory in practice and its possible applications to litigations.  It spends time discussing the different approaches to using economics in the court room to focus on areas of economic analysis compared to game theory in cases such as antitrust suits. 

It makes a point that game theory can provide equilibrium on the basis of determining firm actions on the basis of other firms’ actions.  However, it also points out that determining optimal strategy also relies on selecting specific games and predictions about opponent strategy.  “While the conventional wisdom has been that predation is largely irrational, some game theory models have found particular examples where predation could be an equilibrium.” We covered this in class with the Hawk/Dove examples earlier. 

So, while this article points out that game theory could be a possible solution to many court room issues, it has a number of flaws that have prevented its use thus far.  The basic flaws are that it is assumed too complicated for most cases of use, there are too many equilibrium possibilities depending on game selection and criteria used to determine strategy, and that the models can easily be posed from opposite views to eliminate equilibriums that could reconcile situations. 

Ultimately, the use of game theory in the court room could alter the conventional wisdom used to establish many court decisions, but the potential for error or misrepresentation of results makes it less helpful than it could be.  The author ends by saying that until the results are tested more thoroughly, game theory will not help in litigation.  It is easy to see how, in the future, it could drastically change our views on antitrust and in many other court decisions.

Companies advertise everywhere! While there are a select few ads that make people talk, such as the iPod (what is the name of that song?) and Geico commercials, a majority of ads are just plain obnoxious. With all the buzz about social networks, however, advertisers are picking up on new ways to increase their sales.

The article Beyond Clicks: Measuring Effects of Social Net Ads uses MySpace as a prime example of social network marketing. There are always the flashing advertisements, but these are seen all over the web. Instead, companies such as Adidas have their own profile on MySpace in which people can “friend.” This idea alone will be of benefit to the companies which are already popular. People, especially kids and teenagers, want to associate with brands that are considered cool. Even more, users are allowed to download wallpapers and are provided incentives such as discounts and event invitations. Advertising in this way not only helps companies make more money, but the social networking site can cash in too. On the down-side though, some companies will be more successful with this than others, which might hurt those other less successful companies in the end.

Some important aspects that are available for the public to see are the statistics that show how many friends a brand has, how many videos were viewed, etc. There doesn’t seem to be a preferred way to evaluate this type of advertising yet, because according to Heidi Browning, they “don’t want to pigeonhole friends as the new click-through rate.” This is just the beginning of a new method of advertisement, and if companies can pinpoint social networks with specific audiences who might take interest in their products, there can be many benefits.