771 research outputs found
Peer influence in the diffusion of iPhone 3G over a large social network
In this paper, we study the effect of peer influence in the diffusion of the iPhone 3G across a number of communities sampled from a large dataset provided by a major European Mobile carrier in one country. We identify tight communities of users in which peer influence may play a role and use instrumental variables to control for potential correlation between unobserved subscriber heterogeneity and friends' adoption. We provide evidence that the propensity of a subscriber to adopt increases with the percentage of friends who have already adopted. During a period of 11 months, we estimate that 14 percent of iPhone 3Gs sold by this carrier were due to peer influence. This result is obtained after controlling for social clustering, gender, previous adoption of mobile Internet data plans, ownership of technologically advanced handsets, and heterogeneity in the regions where subscribers move during the day and spend most of their evenings. This result remains qualitatively unchanged when we control for changes over time in the structure of the social network. We provide results from several policy experiments showing that, with this level of effect of peer influence, the carrier would have hardly benefitted from using traditional marketing strategies to seed the iPhone 3G to benefit from viral marketing.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Asymmetric Peer Influence in Smartphone Adoption in a Large Mobile Network
Understanding adoption patterns of smartphones is of vital importance to telecommunication managers in today’s highly dynamic mobile markets. In this paper, we leverage the network structure and specific position of each individual in the social network to account for and measure the potential heterogeneous role of peer influence in the adoption of the iPhone 3G. We introduce the idea of coreperiphery as a meso-level organizational principle to study the social network, which complements the use of centrality measures derived from either global network properties (macro-level) or from each individual\u27s local social neighbourhood (micro-level). Using millions of call detailed records from a mobile network operator in one country for a period of eleven months, we identify overlapping social communities as well as core and periphery individuals in the network. Our empirical analysis shows that core users exert more influence on periphery users than vice versa. Our findings provide important insights to help identify influential members in the social network, which is potentially useful to design optimal targeting strategies to improve current network-based marketing practices
The Role of Peer Influence in Churn in Wireless Networks
Subscriber churn remains a top challenge for wireless carriers. These
carriers need to understand the determinants of churn to confidently apply
effective retention strategies to ensure their profitability and growth. In
this paper, we look at the effect of peer influence on churn and we try to
disentangle it from other effects that drive simultaneous churn across friends
but that do not relate to peer influence. We analyze a random sample of roughly
10 thousand subscribers from large dataset from a major wireless carrier over a
period of 10 months. We apply survival models and generalized propensity score
to identify the role of peer influence. We show that the propensity to churn
increases when friends do and that it increases more when many strong friends
churn. Therefore, our results suggest that churn managers should consider
strategies aimed at preventing group churn. We also show that survival models
fail to disentangle homophily from peer influence over-estimating the effect of
peer influence.Comment: Accepted in Seventh ASE International Conference on Social Computing
(Socialcom 2014), Best Paper Award Winne
Fad-like Technology Adoption as a Social Action
When technology adoption takes on fad-like characteristics it becomes critical to understand consumer behaviors due to the large swings in demand and expectations for the technology. Companies can see revenues skyrocket, only to fall just as fast without understanding the dynamics of the consumer adoption decision process. A model for fad-like technology adoption is described using the technology adoption lifecycle from Rogers adding the theory of information cascades and adopter thresholds. Adopter behavior in each stage of the lifecycle is described as individualistic or holistic utilizing the theories of Watkins and Durkheim. Adoption of the Apple iPhoneTM is shown to illustrate the application of the model and the individual and holistic social actions of fad-like technology adoption
Quantifying Social Influence in an Online Music Community
This paper studies two types of social influence in an online music community: observational learning influence based on aggregate consumption data, and social network influence based on music consumption by friends in social proximity. The analysis uses a variety of empirical methods, applied to highly granular user listening and “favoriting” behavior on the largest music blog aggregator site. Our analysis finds positive evidence for observational learning effects, but no evidence for social network influence. Thus, any social influence in this music context is channeled through popularity cues offered by aggregate consumption statistics, rather than contact and communication with friends in close social proximity. We discuss implications of these results for research and practice
Prospects of Mobile Search
Search faces (at least) two major challenges. One is to improve efficiency of retrieving relevant content for all digital formats (images, audio, video, 3D shapes, etc). The second is making relevant information retrievable in a range of platforms, particularly in high diffusion ones as mobiles. The two challenges are interrelated but distinct. This report aims at assessing the potential of future Mobile Search. Two broad groups of search-based applications can be identified. The first one is the adaptation and emulation of web search processes and services to the mobile environment. The second one is services exploiting the unique features of the mobile devices and the mobile environments. Examples of these context-aware services include location-based services or interfacing to the internet of things (RFID networks).
The report starts by providing an introduction to mobile search. It highlights differences and commonalities with search technologies on other platforms (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 is devoted to the supply side of mobile search markets. It describes mobile markets, presents key figures and gives an outline of main business models and players. Chapter 3 is dedicated to the demand side of the market. It studies users¿ acceptance and demand using the results on a case study in Sweden. Chapter 4 presents emerging trends in technology and markets that could shape mobile search. It is the author's view after discussing with many experts. One input to this discussion was the analysis of on forward-looking scenarios for mobile developed by the authors (Chapter 5). Experts were asked to evaluate these scenarios. Another input was a questionnaire to which 61 experts responded. Drivers, barriers and enablers for mobile search have been synthesised into SWOT analysis. The report concludes with some policy recommendations in view of the likely socio-economic implications of mobile search in Europe.JRC.DG.J.4-Information Societ
Big Data for Social Sciences: Measuring patterns of human behavior through large-scale mobile phone data
Through seven publications this dissertation shows how anonymized mobile
phone data can contribute to the social good and provide insights into human
behaviour on a large scale. The size of the datasets analysed ranges from 500
million to 300 billion phone records, covering millions of people. The key
contributions are two-fold:
1. Big Data for Social Good: Through prediction algorithms the results show
how mobile phone data can be useful to predict important socio-economic
indicators, such as income, illiteracy and poverty in developing countries.
Such knowledge can be used to identify where vulnerable groups in society are,
reduce economic shocks and is a critical component for monitoring poverty rates
over time. Further, the dissertation demonstrates how mobile phone data can be
used to better understand human behaviour during large shocks in society,
exemplified by an analysis of data from the terror attack in Norway and a
natural disaster on the south-coast in Bangladesh. This work leads to an
increased understanding of how information spreads, and how millions of people
move around. The intention is to identify displaced people faster, cheaper and
more accurately than existing survey-based methods.
2. Big Data for efficient marketing: Finally, the dissertation offers an
insight into how anonymised mobile phone data can be used to map out large
social networks, covering millions of people, to understand how products spread
inside these networks. Results show that by including social patterns and
machine learning techniques in a large-scale marketing experiment in Asia, the
adoption rate is increased by 13 times compared to the approach used by
experienced marketers. A data-driven and scientific approach to marketing,
through more tailored campaigns, contributes to less irrelevant offers for the
customers, and better cost efficiency for the companies.Comment: 166 pages, PHD thesi
Smartphones
Many of the research approaches to smartphones actually regard them as more or less transparent points of access to other kinds of communication experiences. That is, rather than considering the smartphone as something in itself, the researchers look at how individuals use the smartphone for their communicative purposes, whether these be talking, surfing the web, using on-line data access for off-site data sources, downloading or uploading materials, or any kind of interaction with social media. They focus not so much on the smartphone itself but on the activities that people engage in with their smartphones
Cellular
Tracks the evolution of the international cellular industry from the late 1970s to the present. The development of the mobile-phone industry into what we know today required remarkable cooperation between companies, governments, and industrial sectors. Companies developing cellular infrastructure, cellular devices, cellular network services, and eventually software and mobile semiconductors had to cooperate, not simply compete, with each other. In this global history of the mobile-phone industry, Daniel D. Garcia-Swartz and Martin Campbell-Kelly examine its development in the United States, Europe, Japan, and several emerging economies, including China and India. They present the evolution of mobile phones from the perspective of vendors of telephone equipment and network operators, users whose lives have been transformed by mobile phones, and governments that have fostered specific mobile-phone standards. Cellular covers the technical aspects of the cellphone, as well as its social and political impact. Beginning with the 1980s, the authors trace the development of closed (proprietary) and open (available to all) cellular standards, the impact of network effects as cellular adoption increased, major technological changes affecting mobile phone hardware, and the role of national governments in shaping the industry. The authors also consider the changing roles that cellular phones have played in the everyday lives of people around the world and the implications 5G technology may have for the future. Finally, they offer statistics on how quickly the cellular industry grew in different regions of the world and how firms competed in those various markets
Mobile travel services: the effect of moderating context factors
This article has two objectives: (1) to draw an international comparison regarding the acceptance of mobile travel services in three countries with different profiles when it comes to travelling and mobile telecommunications, and (2) to extend relevant literature on mobile applications, more specifically travel services, by including context-related concepts, taking moderating factors like location, mobility of users, physical, and social context into account. Based on surveys that were carried out in 2009, structural equation modelling is used to identify differences in patterns in the use of mobile travel services and in the role of context-related variables. the conclusion of this article is that context-related factors, that is, mobility and (physical and social) context, have an impact on the relationship between the core concepts of technology Acceptance model (TAM) and Diffusion of Innovation (DoI) research. many studies on the acceptance and use of mobile services indicate that a deep understanding is needed of individual, context-related, and technological characteristics and the way they interact. this is also highly relevant to the travel industry, which wants to utilize the opportunities provided by mobile technology
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