Trend makers and trend spotters in a mobile application

Abstract

Media marketers and researchers have shown great interestin what becomes a trend within social media sites. Their interests have focused on analyzing the items that become trends, and done so in the context of Youtube, Twitter, and Foursquare. Here we move away from these three platforms and consider a new mobile social-networking application with which users share pictures of "cool" things they find in the real-world. Besides, we shift focus from items to people. Specifically, we focus on those who generate trends (trend makers) and those who spread them (trend spotters). We analyze the complete dataset of user interactions, and characterize trend makers (spotters) by activity, geographical, and demographic features. We find that there are key characteristics that distinguish them from typical users. Also, we provide statistical models that accurately identify who is a trend maker (spotter). These contributions not only expand current studies on trends in social media but also promise to inform the design of recommender systems, and new products.

Evolutionary habits on the web

“…This talk will show that, as online platforms become mature, the social behavior we have evolved over thousands of years is reflected on our actions on the web as well. It turns out that, in the context of social influence, finding the "(special) many" (of those who are able to spot trends early one) is more important than trying to find the "special few" [10]; that people with different personality traits take on different roles on both Twitter and Facebook [5,6]; that language, with its vocabulary and prescribed ways of communicating, is a symbolic resource that can be used on its own to influence others [4]; and that a Facebook relationship is more likely to break if it is not embedded in the same social circle, if it is between two people whose ages differ, and if one of the two is neurotic or introvert [3]. Interestingly, we also found that a relationship with a common female friend is more robust than that with a common male friend.…”