Home > Social Studies
Tipping the Giant
I spent part of a long rainy afternoon two weekends ago slaying a Giant with a small pebble. No, it wasn’t a new video game. The Giant is the large connected component that can crop up in random graphs. Random … Continue reading
Social Networks Go to War
The New America Foundation brought together military officers, academics, and journalists to discuss the role of social networks in analyzing terror cells. Fortunately, the video is on YouTube, and you can watch Scott Helfstein, Assistant Professor at the US Military … Continue reading
The Diagram that Explains Why the Tipping Point is Wrong
To review, the theory behind viral marketing is that influencers infect their neighbors with an idea, preferably related to purchasing something. These neighbors then spread the idea to their network neighbors, thereby initiating a cascade— the network tips. Of course, this … Continue reading
Twitter is the Internet’s Fork
I’ve been reading David Pogue’s review of Google Buzz , as well as Mathew Ingram’s analysis at GigaOm. I will echo their sentiments: Buzz’s design for pushing a few characters out to the Internet is overly complicated. As a reader … Continue reading
Twitter:The Great Equalizer
The Old West had the Colt .45, the New York restaurant scene has Twitter. The New York Times’ Julia Moskin tells how restaurateurs, chefs, and cooking staff are using Twitter, Facebook, and blogs to settle scores, retaliate against critics, and … Continue reading
Buzz Off! (for now)
It’s most likely a case of cabin fever and general grumpiness from shoveling my way out of the instant tundra that befell New Jersey. I won’t be abandoning Twitter anytime soon for Google Buzz . But Buzz has a few … Continue reading
There’s a Scuba Diver in My Street View
Residents of Rugdeveien Street in Bergen, Norway had this reaction to Google Street View:
Indomitable Twitter
In a recent article, The Times’ media writer David Carr is convinced (as am I) that twitter will endure. He gives simple reasons why this is so. Besides being incredibly easy to use, twitter’s stingy character limit is actually a … Continue reading
Strogatz is Blogging at The Times
Cornell mathematician Steve Strogatz is writing posts for The New York Times’ Opinionator blog. He’s better known to some through the Watts-Strogatz small world model (or six degrees of Kevin Bacon). Strogatz and Watts were the first to explain the clustering … Continue reading
The First Tweets
As a growing tadpole in the 1970s, I remember discovering the mischievous humor of the NY Times capsule movie reviews. Buried in the TV listings, these one-line confections were whipped up by the legendary Timesman Howard Thompson. For millions of … Continue reading
