Noyce Conference Room
Colloquium
  US Mountain Time

Our campus is closed to the public for this event.

Dan Goldstein (Microsoft Research)

Abstract: Because of online social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and the like, social science researchers finally have access to data that have been missing for most of human history. These data describe networks of people’s social worlds, as well as the behaviors of people and their social contacts. These data seem to hold great promise for firms. They may wish to use them to decide who to do business with (targeting) to encourage the spread of a product or idea through a population (diffusion). This lecture discusses the economic value of social network data for firms and reports the results of two studies, each spanning multiple domains and millions of individuals, which ask to what extent products spread "virally" over online social networks and to what extent social network data complement traditional predictive models.

Purpose: 
Research Collaboration
SFI Host: 
Mirta Galesic

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