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Title:

Network Theory: An Essential Tool For Social Applications

Your vote:
Level:
Intermediate
Type:
Solo
Category:
Community / Social Networks
Presenter:
Hung Truong, Troubadour Mobile Inc.
Description:
What can the network structure of your users tell you about your product? What can it tell you about the users themselves? Learn how to extract, format, visualize and analyze network data. Learn about network centrality measures, community structure, and application propagation. Find out what they mean to your product.
Hung Truong
on 9/8/08
For a preview of the type of stuff that will be covered check out this blog post: http://www.hung-truong.com/blog/2008/03/08/a-tale-of-two-facebook-apps-viral-vs-non-viral-growth/ The presentation will go more in-depth with regards to actually collecting the data and preparing it for analysis. I'm also down for suggestions on topics you would find especially interesting. Please leave comments!
Ben Riggs
on 11/8/08
Can you use this information to make proactive changes for your product, to reach a broader audience? How does knowing how your information gets around in a social network help you actually connect with any new users? Like, if Notecentric demonstrates limited growth-potential, what changes could you make to the original program to help it along? Is it about knowing your audience, and therefore simply targeting similar-type users (based on location, etc.)? What, exactly, does the analysis actually tell you? OR: Is it most useful when it's compared to data from a different product, so that you can contrast the products themselves side-by-side and use that information to directly correlate it to the network success? So, if, for example, you looked at the data on 'Facebook' versus 'MySpace,' and you found a more viral/successful user-structure surrounding, say, Facebook, does that really just tell you to make MySpace more like Facebook if you want to reach the same audience? Is that what it's about? Did any of what I write make sense? I'm sleepy.
Hung Truong
on 12/8/08
Hey Ben, those are some really good questions. And yes, they did make sense. You're right, network analysis isn't some kind of silver bullet for werewolves or anything. It won't directly solve any problems you might have with growth. What it can do is help you to gain an understanding about your network, your users and how your users connect and spread the network to their friends. Knowing the weak points of the network gives you the information you want in order to make decisions on how to improve the application. You could also use network analysis to find the most central users to your application and use that information for whatever (spreading marketing through them, taking them out if they're inciting a riot, etc.) There's a lot you can do with the knowledge gained from network analysis. I'll definitely talk more about that aspect during the presentation as well. Thanks for the comment!
Ruby Sinreich
on 25/8/08
Sounds great, I'm definitely voting for this.
Hung Truong
on 26/8/08
Hey Ruby, Thanks for voting on this. I dunno if you saw my blog post about my SXSW panel picks (http://www.hung-truong.com/blog/2008/08/10/sxsw-2009-presentation-submission-my-panel-picker-picks/) or the comment I left on your proposal but I also voted for yours :)
Do it today!
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    0
    Zilch - I have no interest in this idea.
    1
    OK - But this is not really my cup of tea.
    2
    Good - I might attend this panel.
    3
    Better - I probably will attend this panel.
    4
    Best - I will definitely attend this panel.
    5
    Amazing - This justifies my trip to SXSW.
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