153 research outputs found
The DVD vs. DIVX Standard War: Empirical Evidence of Vaporware
In this paper, we empirically measure the effect of the DIVX preannouncement in the DVD market. We do this by measuring the effect of potential (incompatible) competition on a network undergoing growth. We find that there are network effects in the DVD market and that the preannouncement of DIVX slowed down the adoption of DVD technology. This suggests that strategic preannouncements can indeed affect the outcome of a standards competition.
Indirect Network Effects and Adoption Externalities
The conventional wisdom is that indirect network effects, unlike direct network effects, do not give rise to externalities. In this paper we show that under very general conditions, indirect network effects lead to adoption externalities. In particular we show that in markets where consumption benefits arise from hardware/software systems, adoption externalities will occur when there are (i) increasing returns to scale in the production of software, (ii) free-entry in software, and (iii) consumers have a preference for software variety. The private benefit of the marginal hardware purchaser is less than the social benefit since the marginal hardware purchaser does not internalize the welfare improving response of the software industry, particularly the increase in software variety, on inframarginal purchasers when the market for hardware expands.Network Externalities, Network Effects
Microstructure of Collaboration: The Network of Open Source Software
The open source model is a form of software development with source code
that is typically made available to all interested parties. At the core
of this process is a decentralized production process: open source
software development is done by a network of unpaid software developers.
Using data from Sourceforge.net, the largest repository of Open Source
Software (OSS) projects and contributors on the Internet, we construct
two related networks: A Project network and a Contributor network.
Knowledge spillovers may be closely related to the structure of such
networks, since contributors who work on several projects likely
exchange information and knowledge. Defining the number of downloads as
output we finds that (i) additional contributors are associated with an
increase in output, but that additional contributors to projects in the
giant component are associated with greater output gains than additional
contributors to projects outside of the giant component; (ii)
Betweenness centrality of the project is positively associated with the
number of downloads. (iii) Closeness centrality of the project appears
also to be positively associated with downloads, but the effect is not
statistically significant over all specifications. (iv) Controlling for
the correlation between these two measures of centrality (betweenness
and closeness), the degree is not positively associated with the number
of downloads. (v) The average closeness centrality of the contributors
that participated in a project is positively correlated with the success
of the project. These results suggest that there are positive spillovers
of knowledge for projects occupying critical junctures in the
information flow. When we define projects as connected if and only if
they had at least two contributors in common, we again find that
additional contributors are associated with an increase in output, and
again find that this increase is much higher for projects with strong
ties than other projects in the giant component
An Experimental Study of Cryptocurrency Market Dynamics
As cryptocurrencies gain popularity and credibility, marketplaces for
cryptocurrencies are growing in importance. Understanding the dynamics of these
markets can help to assess how viable the cryptocurrnency ecosystem is and how
design choices affect market behavior. One existential threat to
cryptocurrencies is dramatic fluctuations in traders' willingness to buy or
sell. Using a novel experimental methodology, we conducted an online experiment
to study how susceptible traders in these markets are to peer influence from
trading behavior. We created bots that executed over one hundred thousand
trades costing less than a penny each in 217 cryptocurrencies over the course
of six months. We find that individual "buy" actions led to short-term
increases in subsequent buy-side activity hundreds of times the size of our
interventions. From a design perspective, we note that the design choices of
the exchange we study may have promoted this and other peer influence effects,
which highlights the potential social and economic impact of HCI in the design
of digital institutions.Comment: CHI 201
Mapping genomic loci implicates genes and synaptic biology in schizophrenia
Schizophrenia has a heritability of 60-80%1, much of which is attributable to common risk alleles. Here, in a two-stage genome-wide association study of up to 76,755 individuals with schizophrenia and 243,649 control individuals, we report common variant associations at 287 distinct genomic loci. Associations were concentrated in genes that are expressed in excitatory and inhibitory neurons of the central nervous system, but not in other tissues or cell types. Using fine-mapping and functional genomic data, we identify 120 genes (106 protein-coding) that are likely to underpin associations at some of these loci, including 16 genes with credible causal non-synonymous or untranslated region variation. We also implicate fundamental processes related to neuronal function, including synaptic organization, differentiation and transmission. Fine-mapped candidates were enriched for genes associated with rare disruptive coding variants in people with schizophrenia, including the glutamate receptor subunit GRIN2A and transcription factor SP4, and were also enriched for genes implicated by such variants in neurodevelopmental disorders. We identify biological processes relevant to schizophrenia pathophysiology; show convergence of common and rare variant associations in schizophrenia and neurodevelopmental disorders; and provide a resource of prioritized genes and variants to advance mechanistic studies
- …