EAGER: Social Information Dissemination: A Market Based Approach

Columbia University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Social network services have transformed daily lives and have influenced most aspects of society in the developed world, including politics, entertainment, sports and education. These services provide information that is both generated and consumed by their users. In some cases it has resulted in billions of dollars of commerce, but in other cases the search for a revenue stream persists. The true economic value of this information and its dissemination is neither understood today nor recognized by providers of online social network service. This project entails a research approach combining the analysis of competitive market equilibria and their computational properties, analysis of online social networks and their communication properties, and cooperative game theory, to reach such an understanding and provide mechanisms to benefit from it. The project will also illustrate and validate the mechanisms on case studies. More specifically, the project aims to understand the impact of social influence on the Arrow-Debreu market model. The project investigates the nature of utility functions, the nature of social influence graphs, and the mix of traders in the information dissemination market. It aims to understand the effects of these on the computational complexity of market equilibria as well as the convergence of market dynamics. This project will provide fundamental insights on the economics of social information dissemination. It will enable a better understanding of these complex systems and will provide fundamental tools for more efficient and robust designs. A successful completion of the project will not only provide theoretical and technical contributions, but will affect the design and implementation of the next generation of social networks and the information market that exists therein. The results can aid in the public understanding of such complex systems as well as inform policy debate.