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Analyzing the Social Web

Analyzing the Social Web

1 review
by Jennifer Golbeck
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Release Date: February 2013
ISBN: 9780124055315
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Book Description

Analyzing the Social Web provides a framework for the analysis of public data currently available and being generated by social networks and social media, like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. Access and analysis of this public data about people and their connections to one another allows for new applications of traditional social network analysis techniques that let us identify things like who are the most important or influential people in a network, how things will spread through the network, and the nature of peoples' relationships. Analyzing the Social Web introduces you to these techniques, shows you their application to many different types of social media, and discusses how social media can be used as a tool for interacting with the online public.

  • Presents interactive social applications on the web, and the types of analysis that are currently conducted in the study of social media.
  • Covers the basics of network structures for beginners, including measuring methods for describing nodes, edges, and parts of the network.
  • Discusses the major categories of social media applications or phenomena and shows how the techniques presented can be applied to analyze and understand the underlying data.
  • Provides an introduction to information visualization, particularly network visualization techniques, and methods for using them to identify interesting features in a network, generate hypotheses for analysis, and recognize patterns of behavior.
  • Includes a supporting website with lecture slides, exercises, and downloadable social network data sets that can be used can be used to apply the techniques presented in the book.

Table of Contents

  1. Cover image
  2. Title page
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. List of Figures
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Foreword
  9. Preface
  10. Chapter 1. Introduction
    1. Analyzing the social web
    2. A brief history of the social web
    3. Websites discussed
    4. Tools used
    5. Exercises
  11. Chapter 2. Nodes, Edges, and Network Measures
    1. Basics of network structure
    2. Representing networks
    3. Basic network structures and properties
    4. Exercises
  12. Chapter 3. Network Structure and Measures
    1. Describing nodes and edges
    2. Describing networks
    3. Exercises
  13. Chapter 4. Network Visualization
    1. Graph layout
    2. Visualizing network features
    3. Scale issues
    4. Exercises
  14. Chapter 5. Tie Strength
    1. The role of tie strength
    2. Measuring tie strength
    3. Tie strength and network structure
    4. Tie strength and network propagation
    5. Exercises
  15. Chapter 6. Trust
    1. Defining trust
    2. Nuances of trust
    3. Measuring trust
    4. Trust in social media
    5. Inferring trust
    6. Network-based inference
    7. Similarity-based trust inference
    8. Exercises
  16. Chapter 7. Understanding Structure Through User Attributes and Behavior
    1. Analyzing attributes and behavior
    2. Exercises
  17. Chapter 8. Building Networks
    1. Modeling networks
    2. Sampling methods
    3. Egocentric network analysis
    4. Exercises
  18. Chapter 9. Entity Resolution and Link Prediction
    1. Link prediction
    2. Entity resolution
    3. Incorporating network data
    4. Link prediction: Case study—Friend recommendation
    5. Entity resolution: Case study—Finding duplicate accounts
    6. Conclusion
    7. Exercises
  19. Chapter 10. Propagation in Networks
    1. Epidemic models
    2. Threshold models
    3. The firefighter problem
    4. Stochastic models
    5. Applications of epidemic models to social media
    6. Exercises
  20. Chapter 11. Community-Maintained Resources
    1. Supporting technologies for community-maintained resources
    2. User motivations
    3. Exercises
  21. Chapter 12. Location-Based Social Interaction
    1. Location technology
    2. Mobile location sharing
    3. Location-based social media analysis
    4. Privacy and location-based social media
    5. Conclusions
    6. Exercises
  22. Chapter 13. Social Information Filtering
    1. Social sharing and social filtering
    2. Automated recommender systems
    3. Case study: Reddit voting system
    4. Case study: Trust-based movie recommendations
    5. Conclusions
    6. Exercises
  23. Chapter 14. Social Media in the Public Sector
    1. Analyzing public-sector social media
    2. Case study: Social media to solve an attempted child abduction
    3. Case study: Congressional use of twitter
    4. Case study: Predicting elections and astroturfing
    5. Exercises
  24. Chapter 15. Business Use of Social Media
    1. Measuring success
    2. Broadcast example: Will it Blend? Marketing campaign
    3. Interaction and monitoring example: Zappos customer service
    4. Social media failure example: Celeb boutique and the NRA
    5. Conclusions
    6. Exercises
  25. Chapter 16. Privacy
    1. Privacy policies and settings
    2. Aggregation and data mining
    3. Data ownership and maintaining privacy online
    4. Respecting privacy in social media analysis
    5. Exercises
  26. Chapter 17. Case Study: Social Network Strategies for Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
    1. Introduction
    2. Related work and background of the zombie apocalypse
    3. Network strategies for the individual: Avoiding infection
    4. Network strategies for the government: Stopping the spread
    5. Network strategies for the individual: Obtaining information
    6. Network strategies for the government: Information sharing
    7. Exercises
  27. References
  28. Glossary
  29. Index