Diffusion of Digital Products in Peer-to-Peer Networks

Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are fast emerging as a viable and cost effective alternative for content delivery on the Internet. By offering rebates to users who share content with others, incentives can be provided to address the well-documented problem of free riding. A primary value proposition of P2P networks is their ability to scale well and facilitate fast distribution of digital products. While the fast diffusion of products in P2P networks has generated substantial interest in P2P, rigorous theoretical studies of the diffusion process have been in absence. Our paper provides one of the first analytical studies of the diffusion process in P2P networks. Starting with an analogy between P2P diffusion and epidemic diffusion, we develop a stochastic diffusion model for flat P2P networks. We find that product diffusion, in P2P networks is likely to follow classic S-shaped processes. Next, we develop a deterministic approximation that is computationally efficient. The model allows a content publisher to analyze the diffusion process, evaluate the impact of offering rebates on product diffusion and also determine the optimal rebate to offer by trading off the reduced margins with the faster diffusion of the product. Finally, we expand our study to account for generation of multiple requests and forwarding of requests in P2P networks. The analytical models presented in this paper serve as a starting point for rigorous modeling and study of content diffusion in P2P networks

A New Consumerism: The influence of social technologies on product design

Social media has enabled a new style of consumerism. Consumers are no longer passive recipients; instead they are assuming active and participatory roles in product design and production, facilitated by interaction and collaboration in virtual communities. This new participatory culture is blurring the boundaries between the specific roles of designer, consumer and producer, creating entrepreneurial opportunities for designers, and empowering consumers to influence product strategies. Evolving designer-consumer interactions are enabling an enhanced model of co-production, through a value-adding social exchange that is driving changes in consumer behaviour and influencing both product strategies and design practice. The consumer is now a knowledgeable participant, or prosumer, who can contribute to user–centered research through crowd sourcing, collaborate and co-create through open-source or open-innovation platforms, assist creative endeavors by pledging venture capital through crowd funding and advocate the product in blogs and forums. Social media- enabled product implementation strategies working in conjunction with digital production technologies (e.g. additive manufacture), enable consumer-directed adaptive customisation, product personalisation, and self-production, with once passive consumers becoming product produsers. Not only is social media driving unprecedented consumer engagement and significant behavioural change, it is emerging as a major enabler of design entrepreneurship, creating new collaborative opportunities. Innovative processes in design practice are emerging, such as the provision of digital artifacts and customisable product frameworks, rather than standardised manufactured solutions. This paper examines the influence of social media-enabled product strategies on the methodology of the next generation of product designers, and discusses the need for an educational response

DRMs, Innovation and Creation

DRMs are intellectual property institutions. They transpose the empirical principle of copyright, which implicitly recognizes that specific ownership rules should be attached to non scientific creation, into the digital era. The legal protection of DRMs, a private means of enforcing content excludability, participates in the "privatization" of copyright protection. This, in turn, means that a proprietary software — governed by intellectual property rights, reinforced by public law — becomes the key to the vertical relations shaped by exclusive copyright. DRMs consequently represent a major stake in the competition to capture network effects in the content distribution vertical chaincopyright; distribution; DRMs; network effects

Social Media And Health: Implications For Primary Health Care Providers

This report is the second deliverable of the ?Digital Inclusion and Social Knowledge Media for Health: Frameworks and Roadmaps? project. The first discussed the concept of social and digital exclusion whilst this report focuses on the emerging phenomenon of social media. The report outlines current knowledge on the users and usages of social media for health and goes on to discuss social media in the context of a continuing focus (ref. D1.1) on the areas of mental health, smoking cessation and teenage lifestyles. The report concludes with an outline of an approach to a ?social media strategy? and with suggestions for directions for future research

Fab Lab Amersfoort, De War: an innovation history

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