Twitter Event Networks and the Superstar Model

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Statistics Papers
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Dynamic networks
preferential attachment
continuous time branching processes
characteristics of branching processes
multitype branching processes
Twitter
social networks
retweet graph
Physical Sciences and Mathematics
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Bhamidi, Shankar
Steele, J Michael
Zaman, Tauhid
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Abstract

Condensation phenomenon is often observed in social networks such as Twitter where one “superstar” vertex gains a positive fraction of the edges, while the remaining empirical degree distribution still exhibits a power law tail. We formulate a mathematically tractable model for this phenomenon that provides a better fit to empirical data than the standard preferential attachment model across an array of networks observed in Twitter. Using embeddings in an equivalent continuous time version of the process, and adapting techniques from the stable age-distribution theory of branching processes, we prove limit results for the proportion of edges that condense around the superstar, the degree distribution of the remaining vertices, maximal nonsuperstar degree asymptotics and height of these random trees in the large network limit.

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2015-01-01
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The Annals of Applied Probability
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