Skip to main content

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 7227))

Abstract

This paper proposes that the “value” of a crowd can be defined in terms of the overall engagement of the individuals within the crowd and that engagement is a function of certain characteristics of the crowds such as small world-ness, sparsity and connectedness. Engagement is hypothesized as messages being exchanged over the complex network which represents the crowd and the “value” is calculated from the entropy of message probability distributions. An initial random network is passed through a process of entropy maximization and the values of some structural properties are recorded with the changing topology to study the corresponding behavior. We show that as the small world-ness and connectedness of a crowd increases and the sparsity decreases, the engagement in the crowd increases.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Barabási, A.L., Albert, R.: Emergence of scaling in random networks. Science 286, 509–512 (1999)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  2. Caren, N., Gaby, S.: Occupy Online: Facebook and the Spread of Occupy Wall Street (October 24, 2011), SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1943168

  3. Demetrius, L.: Robustness and network evolution–an entropic principle. Physica E 346(3-4), 682 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Surowiecki, J.: The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations. Brown Publishing (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Borge-Holthoefer, J., Rivero, A., García, I.: Structural and Dynamical Patterns on Online Social Networks: The Spanish May 15th Movement as a Case Study. PLOSOne (August 19, 2011)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Anand, K., Bianconi, G.: Phys. Rev. E 80, 45102 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Newman, M.E.J.: The structure of scientific collaboration networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98, 404–409 (2001)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Cancho, R.F.I., Sole, R.: Optimization in Complex Networks. Lect. Notes Phys., vol. 625, pp. 114–125 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Sole, R.V., Valverde, S.: Information Theory of Complex Networks: On Evolution and Architectural Constraints. Lect. Notes Phys., vol. 650, pp. 189–207 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Watts, D.J., Strogatz, S.H.: Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks. Nature 393, 440–442 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Hardas, M.S., Purvis, L. (2012). Computing the Value of a Crowd. In: Yang, S.J., Greenberg, A.M., Endsley, M. (eds) Social Computing, Behavioral - Cultural Modeling and Prediction. SBP 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7227. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29047-3_30

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29047-3_30

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-29046-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-29047-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics