Dynamics of information access on the web Export

@article{citeulike:761959, abstract = {While current studies on complex networks focus on systems that change relatively slowly in time, the structure of the most visited regions of the web is altered at the time scale from hours to days. Here we investigate the dynamics of visitation of a major news portal, representing the prototype for such a rapidly evolving network. The nodes of the network can be classified into stable nodes, which form the time-independent skeleton of the portal, and news documents. The visitations of the two node classes are markedly different, the skeleton acquiring visits at a constant rate, while a news document's visitation peaks after a few hours. We find that the visitation pattern of a news document decays as a power law, in contrast with the exponential prediction provided by simple models of site visitation. This is rooted in the inhomogeneous nature of the browsing pattern characterizing individual users: the time interval between consecutive visits by the same user to the site follows a power-law distribution, in contrast to the exponential expected for Poisson processes. We show that the exponent characterizing the individual user's browsing patterns determines the power-law decay in a document's visitation. Finally, our results document the fleeting quality of news and events: while fifteen minutes of fame is still an exaggeration in the online media, we find that access to most news items significantly decays after 36\ \ hours of posting.}, author = {Dezs\"{o}, Z. and Almaas, E. and Luk\'{a}cs, A. and R\'{a}cz, B. and Szakad\'{a}t, I. and Barab\'{a}si, A. L.}, citeulike-article-id = {761959}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PLEEE8000073000006066132000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v73/e066132}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.73.066132}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0505087}, comment = {"We find that the overall half-time distribution follows a power law (Fig. 4b), indicating that while most news have a very short lifetime, a few continue to be accessed well beyond their initial release." "... our measurements indicate that the visitation of most news items decays significantly after 36 hours of posting. The average lifetime must vary for different media, but the decay laws we identified are likely generic, as they do not depend on content, but are determined mainly by the users' visitation and browsing patterns" "the visitation of news documents is the highest right after their release and decreases in time, thus their cumulative visitation reaches a saturation after several days." }, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevE.73.066132}, journal = {Physical Review E (Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics)}, keywords = {activity, barabasi, decay, dynamics, human\_actions, human\_dynamics, news, novelty, poisson\_processes, power\_law\_distribution, temporalanalysis, time, toread1}, number = {6}, pages = {066132+}, posted-at = {2009-09-20 16:42:26}, priority = {2}, publisher = {APS}, title = {Dynamics of information access on the web}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.73.066132}, volume = {73}, year = {2006} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:761959 L3 - citeulike-article-id:761959 N2 - While current studies on complex networks focus on systems that change relatively slowly in time, the structure of the most visited regions of the web is altered at the time scale from hours to days. Here we investigate the dynamics of visitation of a major news portal, representing the prototype for such a rapidly evolving network. The nodes of the network can be classified into stable nodes, which form the time-independent skeleton of the portal, and news documents. The visitations of the two node classes are markedly different, the skeleton acquiring visits at a constant rate, while a news document's visitation peaks after a few hours. We find that the visitation pattern of a news document decays as a power law, in contrast with the exponential prediction provided by simple models of site visitation. This is rooted in the inhomogeneous nature of the browsing pattern characterizing individual users: the time interval between consecutive visits by the same user to the site follows a power-law distribution, in contrast to the exponential expected for Poisson processes. We show that the exponent characterizing the individual user's browsing patterns determines the power-law decay in a document's visitation. Finally, our results document the fleeting quality of news and events: while fifteen minutes of fame is still an exaggeration in the online media, we find that access to most news items significantly decays after 36  hours of posting. IS - 6 JF - Physical Review E (Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics) TI - Dynamics of information access on the web PB - APS VL - 73 SP - 066132 KW - activity KW - barabasi KW - decay KW - dynamics KW - human_actions KW - human_dynamics KW - news KW - novelty KW - poisson_processes KW - power_law_distribution KW - temporalanalysis KW - time KW - toread1 N1 - "We find that the overall half-time distribution follows a power law (Fig. 4b), indicating that while most news have a very short lifetime, a few continue to be accessed well beyond their initial release." "... our measurements indicate that the visitation of most news items decays significantly after 36 hours of posting. The average lifetime must vary for different media, but the decay laws we identified are likely generic, as they do not depend on content, but are determined mainly by the users’ visitation and browsing patterns" "the visitation of news documents is the highest right after their release and decreases in time, thus their cumulative visitation reaches a saturation after several days." AU - Dezsö, Z AU - Almaas, E AU - Lukács, A AU - Rácz, B AU - Szakadát, I AU - Barabási, AL PY - 2006/// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.73.066132 ER -