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A Game-Theoretic Analysis of a Competitive Diffusion Process over Social Networks

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Internet and Network Economics (WINE 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 7695))

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Abstract

We study a game-theoretic model for the diffusion of competing products in social networks. Particularly, we consider a simultaneous non-cooperative game between competing firms that try to target customers in a social network. This triggers a competitive diffusion process, and the goal of each firm is to maximize the eventual number of adoptions of its own product. We study issues of existence, computation and performance (social inefficiency) of pure strategy Nash equilibria in these games. We mainly focus on 2-player games, and we model the diffusion process using the known linear threshold model. Nonetheless, many of our results continue to hold under a more general framework for this process.

Work supported by the project ALGONOW of the research funding program Thales (co-financed by the European Social Fund-ESF and Greek national funds). A full version of this work with all missing proofs is available at the authors’ websites.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Greece

    Vasileios Tzoumas

  2. Department of Informatics, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece

    Christos Amanatidis & Evangelos Markakis

  3. Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, USA

    Vasileios Tzoumas

Authors
  1. Vasileios Tzoumas
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  2. Christos Amanatidis
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  3. Evangelos Markakis
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, Ashton Building, Ashton Street, L69 3BX, Liverpool, UK

    Paul W. Goldberg

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Tzoumas, V., Amanatidis, C., Markakis, E. (2012). A Game-Theoretic Analysis of a Competitive Diffusion Process over Social Networks. In: Goldberg, P.W. (eds) Internet and Network Economics. WINE 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7695. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35311-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35311-6_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-35310-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-35311-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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