Influence maximization is a well-studied problem that asks for a small set of
influential users from a social network, such that by targeting them as early
adopters, the expected total adoption through influence cascades over the
network is maximized. However, almost all prior work focuses on cascades of a
single propagating entity or purely-competitive entities. In this work, we
propose the Comparative Independent Cascade (Com-IC) model that covers the full
spectrum of entity interactions from competition to complementarity. In Com-IC,
users' adoption decisions depend not only on edge-level information
propagation, but also on a node-level automaton whose behavior is governed by a
set of model parameters, enabling our model to capture not only competition,
but also complementarity, to any possible degree. We study two natural
optimization problems, Self Influence Maximization and Complementary Influence
Maximization, in a novel setting with complementary entities. Both problems are
NP-hard, and we devise efficient and effective approximation algorithms via
non-trivial techniques based on reverse-reachable sets and a novel "sandwich
approximation". The applicability of both techniques extends beyond our model
and problems. Our experiments show that the proposed algorithms consistently
outperform intuitive baselines in four real-world social networks, often by a
significant margin. In addition, we learn model parameters from real user
action logs.Comment: An abridged of this work is to appear in the Proceedings of VLDB
Endowment (PVDLB), Vol 9, No 2. Also, the paper will be presented in the VLDB
2016 conference in New Delhi, India. This update contains new theoretical and
experimental results, and the paper is now in single-column format (44 pages