Google Plays The Kevin Bacon Game

September 14, 2012 – 2:17 pm

Google has launched a new, highly relevant capability. Google search now supports the Bacon Number for actors, based on building a small world social network, probably from spidering IMDb or the like. If you type in, for example, ‘bacon number laurence olivier’ you will see this:

By Stowe Boyd | Posted in Physics and Social Media | Comments (0)

Unraveling Old Texts Through Social Network Analysis

September 14, 2012 – 2:08 pm

Padraig Mac Carron and Ralph Kenna apply social network analysis to old texts — like The Iliad and Beowolf — to see if the relationships between the characters is like real social snetwork. If they are, that lends support for the premise that these tales are about real people, not just some shadows cast on the

By Stowe Boyd | Posted in Physics and Social Media | Comments (0)

Machines Are People, Too

September 5, 2012 – 11:01 am

Imagine a not-too-distant future where machinery — servers, refrigerators, nuclear reactors — are on line, and following each other. They could respond to messages in programmatic ways, and we could use social media analysis tools to discover the ‘sentiment’ of subways and elevators.  Bruce Sterling called these messaging machines ‘spimes’ (although his concept went a

By Stowe Boyd | Posted in Social Media Analysis | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

New Orleans And Social Capital

August 29, 2012 – 7:51 am

As hurricane Isaac batters New Orleans, seven years after Katrina, it’s worthwhile to ask a few questions about recovery after disasters, specifically why some places never seem to bounce back from disaster. And New Orleans has never really bounced back from Katrina. New Orleans has the highest per capita murder rate in the US, and

By Stowe Boyd | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Twitter Heatmap For ‘Fuck you’

August 23, 2012 – 1:25 pm

Megan Garber at The Atlantic caught my attention with a post about Twitter and the use of swearing: We know, at this point, how the nation tweets. But what about how the nation swears? The Ukrainian-based web development firm Vertaline, aiming to answer that question, scanned tweets posted from across 462 specific locations in the U.S. The team then

By Stowe Boyd | Posted in Physics and Social Media | Tagged | Comments (0)

Can Suicide Be Averted By Social Network Analysis?

August 14, 2012 – 6:17 pm

New research suggests that people with suicidal tendencies don’t differ from others just because they think about suicidal acts, but because they are not embedded in social ‘neighborhoods’ where their online contacts know each other. It appears that they are isolated in their social graphs: Spotting Suicidal Tendencies on Social Networks via MIT Technology Review It turns

By Stowe Boyd | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Mining Twitter Sentiment To Time Stock Trades

July 5, 2012 – 7:21 am

A recent startup called SNTMNT has opened its Trading Indicator API, which provides price predictions about the price of S&P 500 stocks. The company says its accuracy is about 64%, which suggests that users of the API will be consolidating these indicators with other sources of information. The approach is a very detailed level of

By Stowe Boyd | Posted in Physics and Social Media | Comments (3)

Everybody Gossips, Even Using Email

June 25, 2012 – 8:24 am

Gossip — talking about people when they are not present — is a staple of human societies, a universal aspect of human interaction. Not surprising, gossip occurs in all social contexts, including online conversations, like email, Twitter, and instant messaging. “Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who

By Stowe Boyd | Posted in Physics and Social Media | Comments (2)

Everything We Think We Know About People Is Wrong

April 23, 2012 – 8:44 am

One thing we can learn from even a casual inspection of the science of networks is the limits of our everyday understanding of people. For example, consider how much time and energy social metrics companies are spending convincing us that they can find those with the highest levels of influence (‘influencers’) relative to a market

By Stowe Boyd | Posted in Physics and Social Media | Comments (0)

Is Amazon Planning A Book-Centric Social Network?

April 16, 2012 – 9:28 am

Valdis Krebs makes an interesting supposition. He wonders if Amazon might launch a new social network based on the connections we have through books? If I have commented on David Weinberger’s new book, Too Big To Know, that could connect me with others who have read and commented on it. Below is a network map(via

By Stowe Boyd | Posted in Physics and Social Media | Comments (6)