Regensburg 2016 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 17: Social Systems, Opinion and Group Dynamics: Dynamics of Team and Network Formation

SOE 17.1: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 9. März 2016, 15:30–15:45, H36

Is bigger always better? How local online social networks can outperform global ones — •Kaj Kolja Kleineberg and Marian Boguna — Departament de Fisica Fonamental, Universitat de Barcelona, Marti i Franques 1, 08028 Barcelona, Spain

The overwhelming success of online social networks, the key actors in the cosmos of the Web 2.0, has reshaped human interactions on a worldwide scale. To help understand the fundamental mechanisms which determine the fate of online social networks at the system level, we describe the digital world as a complex ecosystem of interacting networks. Here, we discuss the impact of heterogeneity in network fitnesses induced by competition between an international network, such as Facebook, and local services. To this end, we construct a 1:1000 scale model of the digital world, consisting of the 80 countries with the most Internet users. We show how inter-country social ties induce increased fitness of the international network. Under certain conditions, this leads to the extinction of local networks; whereas under different conditions, local networks can persist and even dominate the international network completely. These findings provide new insights into the possibilities for preserving digital diversity.