Abstract

How far and how fast does information spread in social media? Researchers have recently examined a number of factors that affect information diffusion in online social networks, including: the novelty of information, users' activity levels, who they pay attention to, and how they respond to friends' recommendations. Using URLs as markers of information, we carry out a detailed study of retweeting, the primary mechanism by which information spreads on the Twitter follower graph. Our empirical study examines how users respond to an incoming stimulus, ie, a tweet (message) from a friend, and reveals that% retweeting behavior is constrained by a few simple principles. the" principle of least effort" combined with limited attention plays a dominant role in retweeting behavior. Specifically, we observe that users retweet information when it is most visible, such as when it near the top of their Twitter stream. Moreover, our …

Date

January 1, 1970

Authors

Nathan Oken Hodas, Kristina Lerman

Journal

arXiv e-prints

Pages

arXiv: 1205.2736