Abstract

We describe a general stochastic processes-based approach to modeling user-contributory web sites, where users create, rate and share content. These models describe aggregate measures of activity and how they arise from simple models of individual users. This approach provides a tractable method to understand user activity on the web site and how this activity depends on web site design choices, especially the choice of what information about other users' behaviors is shown to each user. We illustrate this modeling approach in the context of user-created content on the news rating site Digg.

Date

March 31, 2009

Authors

Tad Hogg, Kristina Lerman

Conference

Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM)