For many Cornell Student, the Commons is a place they patron only on special occasions. For those that live in Ithaca, or live downtown (like I do), the Commons is more than just a commercial area; it is the heart of the community. This is why the closing of Juna’s Café and the many “going […]

This blog post talks about the negative externalities of certain people when in a network. This blog proposes that negative people may be detrimental to the brains of other people. But in making this point, the author observes that of oftentimes, decisions are not made on a conscious level. Neuroscience has discovered that there humans […]

“Public Health Risk Seen as Parents Reject Vaccines” by Jennifer Steinhauer in NYTimes [March 21, 2008] deals with the strategy of vaccination. Specifically, in some cases parents are allowed by the state the choice to either vaccinate or not vaccinate their kids for certain diseases. This problem wonderfully showcases information cascades and network effects.
The article […]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/technology/techspecial/09socialprise.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=popularity&st=nyt&oref=slogin
As the NYTimes article discusses, online social networking has slowly been making its way into offices around the country. At first the business world pooh-poohed the features of MySpace and Facebook as a trendy teen phenomenon, but as they become more popular and widespread businesses are beginning to understand the value of online social networking […]

Some advertisers are using “influentials” or individuals who are very popular in their social network communities to spread the word of their products. Through social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, and websites like Buzzlogic which measures the influence of influentials, companies are taking advantage of “influence-based programs” and relying heavily on the popular […]

In response to a New York Times article about the recent housing bubble and information cascades, a blog called Going Private: The Sardonic Memoirs of a Private Equity Professional suggests that “Cascades Are a Poor Excuse for Stupidity” in investment decisions. It sites information cascades as part of the larger field of behavorial economics, or […]

Punjab, India has seen a massive explosion in technological advancement on rural farms throughout the area. For example, wheat production in Punjab increased from 1.9 to 5.6 million tons between the years 1965 and 1972. In contrast, many regions surrounding Punjab have had very small increases in investment on farm technology within the same […]

http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=738414
With the world economy going bad, many have resorted to ‘get rich overnight schemes’ by enrolling in pyramid scheme type employment. This article discusses the growing concern over these quickly growing networks. It’s probably unwarranted to claim these services as scams since they do, for the most part, deliver what they promise, but with a […]

Over the years, diet fads have continued to fill our lives with false hope of losing weight the easy way. Diets including Atkins, the Zone, South Beach, the Low-fat, the Baby Food, the Japanese Food, and the Tabasco Diet have all come and gone, each of them having their time in the limelight as […]

This blog article is written by one of investors of Zynga - the developer of games for social networks. The author observes that the web is all about building networks on top of networks. The internet is the base global connection network with over billion people, and we have been […]