Book Chapter•
Using Imperfect Information in Online Social Systems: Applications and Measures of Betweenness
01 Jan 2008-pp 1105-1112
TL;DR: F fuzzy techniques that deal with imprecise information on the strength of social ties are reported on, and an extended model of brokerage that accounts for such imprecising information is provided.
Abstract: Online social software systems enable individuals to build representations of their network of social ties, and such information can be used for the analysis of network structure and the position of individuals in the network. However, social ties representing relationships as “friendship” have intensity or strength as an intrinsic, essential feature, and this needs to be taken into account in network models. This paper reports on fuzzy techniques that deal with imprecise information on the strength of social ties, and provides an extended model of brokerage that accounts for such imprecise information.
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Posted Content•
TL;DR: This study presents architecture for a demographic recommendation system, based on a user-defined hierarchy of service quality indicator importance, and classification of traveler types, and uses an algebraic approach to ascertain preferences from a large dataset obtained from the popular travel website Booking.com.
Abstract: Online consumer reviews play an important role in the decision to purchase services online, mainly due to the rich information source they provide to consumers in terms of evaluating “experience”-type products and services that can be booked using the Internet, with online travel services being a significant example. However, different types of travelers assess each quality indicator differently, depending on the type of travel they engage in, and not necessarily their cultural or age background (e.g. solo travelers, young couples with children etc.). In this study, we present architecture for a demographic recommendation system, based on a user-defined hierarchy of service quality indicator importance, and classification of traveler types. We use an algebraic approach to ascertain preferences from a large dataset that we obtained from the popular travel website Booking.com using a web crawler and compared with the customer-constructed preference matrix. Interestingly, the architecture of the evaluated recommendation system takes into account already defined demand characteristics of the hotels (such as the number of reviews of specific consumer types compared to the total number of reviews) in order to provide an example architecture for a recommendation system based on user-defined preference criteria.
50 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an architecture for a demographic recommendation system, based on a user-defined hierarchy of service quality indicator importance, and classification of traveler types, and use an algebraic approach to ascertain preferences from a large dataset that they obtained from the popular travel website Booking.com using a web crawler and compared with the customer-constructed preference matrix.
Abstract: Online consumer reviews play an important role in the decision to purchase services online, mainly due to the rich information source they provide to consumers in terms of evaluating “experience”-type products and services that can be booked using the Internet, with online travel services being a significant example. However, different types of travelers assess each quality indicator differently, depending on the type of travel they engage in, and not necessarily their cultural or age background (e.g. solo travelers, young couples with children etc.). In this study, we present architecture for a demographic recommendation system, based on a user-defined hierarchy of service quality indicator importance, and classification of traveler types. We use an algebraic approach to ascertain preferences from a large dataset that we obtained from the popular travel website Booking.com using a web crawler and compared with the customer-constructed preference matrix. Interestingly, the architecture of the evaluated recommendation system takes into account already defined demand characteristics of the hotels (such as the number of reviews of specific consumer types compared to the total number of reviews) in order to provide an example architecture for a recommendation system based on user-defined preference criteria.
37 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the degree of overlap of two individuals' friendship networks varies directly with the strength of their tie to one another, and the impact of this principle on diffusion of influence and information, mobility opportunity, and community organization is explored.
Abstract: Analysis of social networks is suggested as a tool for linking micro and macro levels of sociological theory. The procedure is illustrated by elaboration of the macro implications of one aspect of small-scale interaction: the strength of dyadic ties. It is argued that the degree of overlap of two individuals' friendship networks varies directly with the strength of their tie to one another. The impact of this principle on diffusion of influence and information, mobility opportunity, and community organization is explored. Stress is laid on the cohesive power of weak ties. Most network models deal, implicitly, with strong ties, thus confining their applicability to small, well-defined groups. Emphasis on weak ties lends itself to discussion of relations between groups and to analysis of segments of social structure not easily defined in terms of primary groups.
37,560 citations
TL;DR: In this article, three distinct intuitive notions of centrality are uncovered and existing measures are refined to embody these conceptions, and the implications of these measures for the experimental study of small groups are examined.
14,757 citations
"Using Imperfect Information in Onli..." refers background in this paper
...As defined by Freeman [2], degree centrality is a count of the number of edges incident upon a given node (considering both directed and non-directed networks)....
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...A well known measure for betweeenness centrality is Freeman’s [2]....
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TL;DR: A review of argument and evidence on the connection between social networks and social capital can be found in this paper, where the authors focus on the network mechanisms responsible for social capital effects rather than trying to integrate across metaphors of social capital loosely tied to distant empirical indicators.
3,441 citations
"Using Imperfect Information in Onli..." refers background in this paper
...Since existing empirical evidence [9] point out that social systems on the Web contain strong local clusters, it seems reasonable to examine the individuals acting as brokers between the clusters as potential sources of communication and contact that add value [1] to the membership in on-line social systems....
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...Existing studies on social capital [1] discuss two main arguments on the network structures that create social capital....
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...sub-networks [1]....
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...But it also provides a particular way to collect social network data that opens the opportunity to automatically compute diverse social network measures, which might be meaningful for analysis and decision making inside organizations [1], or for professionals and entrepreneurs using on-line tools....
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24 Oct 2007
TL;DR: This paper examines data gathered from four popular online social networks: Flickr, YouTube, LiveJournal, and Orkut, and reports that the indegree of user nodes tends to match the outdegree; the networks contain a densely connected core of high-degree nodes; and that this core links small groups of strongly clustered, low-degree node at the fringes of the network.
Abstract: Online social networking sites like Orkut, YouTube, and Flickr are among the most popular sites on the Internet. Users of these sites form a social network, which provides a powerful means of sharing, organizing, and finding content and contacts. The popularity of these sites provides an opportunity to study the characteristics of online social network graphs at large scale. Understanding these graphs is important, both to improve current systems and to design new applications of online social networks.This paper presents a large-scale measurement study and analysis of the structure of multiple online social networks. We examine data gathered from four popular online social networks: Flickr, YouTube, LiveJournal, and Orkut. We crawled the publicly accessible user links on each site, obtaining a large portion of each social network's graph. Our data set contains over 11.3 million users and 328 million links. We believe that this is the first study to examine multiple online social networks at scale.Our results confirm the power-law, small-world, and scale-free properties of online social networks. We observe that the indegree of user nodes tends to match the outdegree; that the networks contain a densely connected core of high-degree nodes; and that this core links small groups of strongly clustered, low-degree nodes at the fringes of the network. Finally, we discuss the implications of these structural properties for the design of social network based systems.
3,266 citations
"Using Imperfect Information in Onli..." refers background in this paper
...Since existing empirical evidence [9] point out that social systems on the Web contain strong local clusters, it seems reasonable to examine the individuals acting as brokers between the clusters as potential sources of communication and contact that add value [1] to the membership in on-line social systems....
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...in [9]....
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...Recent studies [9] have reported that the graphs structure on common social software sites have a densely connected core comprising of between 1% and 10% of the highest degree nodes, such that removing this core completely disconnects the graph, but there is also evidence of the presence of strong local clustering....
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TL;DR: Continued research on data quality is needed; beyond improved samples and further investigation of the informant accuracy/reliability issue, this should cover common indices of network structure, address the consequences of sampling portions of a network, and examine the robustness of indicators ofnetwork structure and position to both random and nonrandom errors of measurement.
Abstract: Data on social networks may be gathered for all ties linking elements of a closed population ("complete" network data) or for the sets of ties surrounding sampled individual units ("egocentric" network data). Network data have been obtained via surveys and questionnaires, archives, observation, diaries, electronic traces, and experiments. Most methodological research on data quality concerns surveys and questionnaires. The question of the accuracy with which informants can provide data on their network ties is nontrivial, but survey methods can make some claim to reliability. Unresolved issues include whether to measure perceived social ties or actual exchanges, how to treat temporal elements in the definition of relationships, and whether to seek accurate descriptions or reliable indicators. Continued research on data quality is needed; beyond improved samples and further investigation of the informant accuracy/reliability issue, this should cover common indices of network structure, address the consequences of sampling portions of a network, and examine the robustness of indicators of network structure and position to both random and nonrandom errors of measurement.
2,058 citations
"Using Imperfect Information in Onli..." refers methods in this paper
...Arguably the most common method of collecting data on personal and social networks is to ask people to recall network ties of one type or another [8]....
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