1) The document analyzes how biological, computer, and marketing viruses spread through networks in similar ways.
2) It distinguishes between densely knit networks that promote quick virus spread within the group, and ramified networks that allow viruses to spread more widely between groups.
3) Biological, computer, and marketing viruses all spread rapidly in densely knit networks due to frequent contact and overlap between group members, increasing chances of exposure and re-exposure to viruses.
Existence of Social Media in Pandemic Boon or Baneijtsrd
This article aims to highlight the role and accountability of media and social networking sites in the pandemic situation. In the contemporary world, where everything is being advanced, the role and position of media and social networking sites have also been changed and become more strong. The year 2020 has marked its name in history due to the lockdown and closing of all the borders and states. This kind of lockdown has never ever been happened in the society and in the world. This is due to the virus namely Corona Virus, due to which this type of situation has occurred. Now, in such hard time, the role of media has also increased. Their role is just not to protect the life of people but also ensure that no wrong information be shared with the people which resulted in misleading the folk. Along with that, the role of media is to be the safeguard of the society and help the authorities to know the position of people living in countryside and urban areas. Hence, this article would try to analyze the role played by media and tries to find out whether social networking and media are boon for the society or bane in this alarming situation. Gurpreet Kaur "Existence of Social Media in Pandemic: Boon or Bane" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-4 , June 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd30849.pdf Paper Url :https://www.ijtsrd.com/humanities-and-the-arts/social-science/30849/existence-of-social-media-in-pandemic-boon-or-bane/gurpreet-kaur
The Boston Police Department effectively used Twitter and Google Person Finder to disseminate information during the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings when cell service was disrupted. BPD tweeted 148 times over 5 days, growing its Twitter followers from 54,000 to over 330,000. Google Person Finder allowed over 5,400 people to be registered so families could locate loved ones. While some online forums like Reddit dangerously spread misinformation by misidentifying suspects, the BPD and digital tools overall helped provide security and calm the public during the crisis.
Signal - social media, considerations for public safety and emergency managementIntergen
Social media’s significant usage and ongoing growth creates
opportunity for public safety and emergency management.
Information in and around social media can greatly enhance
intelligence and the common operating picture.
The now commonplace use of social media should encourage
public safety and emergency management agencies to get
involved. The level of involvement can be staged with
monitoring usually being the best place to start.
Many social media monitoring tools have been created to help
organisations manage the deluge of information and gain
intelligence. However, not all tools are alike especially when
it comes to features specific to public safety and emergency
management. Organisations should consider their requirements
carefully when investing in social media monitoring.
This document summarizes a presentation on updating Gene Sharp's 198 methods of nonviolent action for the digital age. It introduces the project to crowdsource enhancing the methods through online collaboration. Examples are given of how traditional methods like public speeches, mourning, and protests can be augmented with tools like hashtags, livestreaming, and check-ins. New digital methods are also proposed such as using maps, QR codes, and file-sharing. Concerns about online surveillance and censorship in repressive regimes are raised. Overall, the project aims to help activists utilize digital tools while considering context and security.
Frances Haugen is a former Facebook employee who leaked internal documents about the platform. Her documents revealed that Facebook was aware of Instagram's potential negative effects on teenage girls' mental health and that the platform spread misinformation and helped incite violence in places like Myanmar. Research shows that heavy social media use can lower self-esteem from social comparison and that Facebook has struggled to remove hate speech from its platform.
STUDY: How Addicted Are We To Facebook Mobile?Rania Alahmad
A comprehensive study by Facebook and IDC shows that most users on mobile check their News Feed frequently. Several users copped to checking Facebook from their phone at the movies and while they’re at the gym.
For #IUday, Filippo Menczer presents research on online misinformation from the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, IU School of Informatics and Computing, and IU Network Science Institute. Watch the Facebook Live talk at https://www.facebook.com/fil.menczer/posts/10108970712372359
Existence of Social Media in Pandemic Boon or Baneijtsrd
This article aims to highlight the role and accountability of media and social networking sites in the pandemic situation. In the contemporary world, where everything is being advanced, the role and position of media and social networking sites have also been changed and become more strong. The year 2020 has marked its name in history due to the lockdown and closing of all the borders and states. This kind of lockdown has never ever been happened in the society and in the world. This is due to the virus namely Corona Virus, due to which this type of situation has occurred. Now, in such hard time, the role of media has also increased. Their role is just not to protect the life of people but also ensure that no wrong information be shared with the people which resulted in misleading the folk. Along with that, the role of media is to be the safeguard of the society and help the authorities to know the position of people living in countryside and urban areas. Hence, this article would try to analyze the role played by media and tries to find out whether social networking and media are boon for the society or bane in this alarming situation. Gurpreet Kaur "Existence of Social Media in Pandemic: Boon or Bane" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-4 , June 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd30849.pdf Paper Url :https://www.ijtsrd.com/humanities-and-the-arts/social-science/30849/existence-of-social-media-in-pandemic-boon-or-bane/gurpreet-kaur
The Boston Police Department effectively used Twitter and Google Person Finder to disseminate information during the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings when cell service was disrupted. BPD tweeted 148 times over 5 days, growing its Twitter followers from 54,000 to over 330,000. Google Person Finder allowed over 5,400 people to be registered so families could locate loved ones. While some online forums like Reddit dangerously spread misinformation by misidentifying suspects, the BPD and digital tools overall helped provide security and calm the public during the crisis.
Signal - social media, considerations for public safety and emergency managementIntergen
Social media’s significant usage and ongoing growth creates
opportunity for public safety and emergency management.
Information in and around social media can greatly enhance
intelligence and the common operating picture.
The now commonplace use of social media should encourage
public safety and emergency management agencies to get
involved. The level of involvement can be staged with
monitoring usually being the best place to start.
Many social media monitoring tools have been created to help
organisations manage the deluge of information and gain
intelligence. However, not all tools are alike especially when
it comes to features specific to public safety and emergency
management. Organisations should consider their requirements
carefully when investing in social media monitoring.
This document summarizes a presentation on updating Gene Sharp's 198 methods of nonviolent action for the digital age. It introduces the project to crowdsource enhancing the methods through online collaboration. Examples are given of how traditional methods like public speeches, mourning, and protests can be augmented with tools like hashtags, livestreaming, and check-ins. New digital methods are also proposed such as using maps, QR codes, and file-sharing. Concerns about online surveillance and censorship in repressive regimes are raised. Overall, the project aims to help activists utilize digital tools while considering context and security.
Frances Haugen is a former Facebook employee who leaked internal documents about the platform. Her documents revealed that Facebook was aware of Instagram's potential negative effects on teenage girls' mental health and that the platform spread misinformation and helped incite violence in places like Myanmar. Research shows that heavy social media use can lower self-esteem from social comparison and that Facebook has struggled to remove hate speech from its platform.
STUDY: How Addicted Are We To Facebook Mobile?Rania Alahmad
A comprehensive study by Facebook and IDC shows that most users on mobile check their News Feed frequently. Several users copped to checking Facebook from their phone at the movies and while they’re at the gym.
For #IUday, Filippo Menczer presents research on online misinformation from the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, IU School of Informatics and Computing, and IU Network Science Institute. Watch the Facebook Live talk at https://www.facebook.com/fil.menczer/posts/10108970712372359
The document discusses how risks and emergency management are changing in the Web 2.0 era. It notes that the Gutenberg printing press revolutionized information sharing, and now the Internet is having a similar effect. Web 2.0 allows for open, collaborative communication and real-time sharing through social media. This was seen after the 2009 earthquake in Abruzzo, Italy, where citizens used Facebook and Twitter to communicate. The document argues that institutions should recognize this transformation and work with volunteer technical communities and citizens to build trust and reliability. A pilot project in Italy aims to crowdsource alerts and information sharing between civil protection groups.
John David Swyden contacted two underage sisters, ages 12 and 14, through Facebook and met with them separately. A Facebook page against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia gained one million likes and inspired street protests of 10 million people in Colombia and 2 million worldwide. Facebook aims to build infrastructure for people's online and offline lives. Some reasons people overshare on Facebook include boosting self-esteem, impression management, and how it influences self-perception. However, others see Facebook as creating a world of exhibitionism.
Viruses exist in a liminal state between living and non-living, integrating themselves into host systems and hijacking their mechanisms to replicate. The author discusses the emergence and proliferation of various viral strains throughout history, from early microbial viruses to more recent digital and cultural viruses. It was not until 1980 that scientists began to recognize computer, retro, and cultural viruses as interconnected elements of a singular viral network, rewriting host codes across domains. However, the author argues that a broader retroviral activity had been operating for much longer, imperceptibly reprogramming biological and cultural systems.
Cyberliteracy involves knowing how to find reliable information online and adapting to technological changes. It means actively participating in online discussions rather than just using technology. Social media allows information sharing but also enables cyberbullying through tools like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Studies show many teens experience cyberbullying like having private information exposed without permission. Cyberbullying has led to suicide in some cases. Schools aim to educate students and parents about cyberliteracy, online safety, privacy, and cyberbullying to help prevent issues.
This document introduces a handbook for journalism education on the topics of journalism, 'fake news', and disinformation. It defines key terms like disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda. It explains that disinformation refers to deliberately misleading information spread to confuse or manipulate people, while misinformation refers to unintentionally misleading information. The document discusses how digital technologies and social media enable the spread of disinformation and undermine trust in journalism. It argues that journalists need to strengthen fact-checking, avoid inadvertently spreading false information, and proactively uncover new forms of disinformation to maintain credibility. The handbook aims to help educate journalists on responsibly addressing this crucial issue.
The impact of social media on how Whitehall works
Sourced from "A dragon's best friend" blog, UKGovCamp 2012 post (http://adragonsbestfriend.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/ukgovcamp-2012/)
Biologically inspired defenses against computer virusesUltraUploader
This document discusses two biologically inspired approaches to computer virus detection and removal: a neural network virus detector that learns to identify infected and uninfected programs, and a computer immune system that can automatically identify, analyze, and remove new viruses from a system. The neural network technique has been incorporated into an IBM commercial antivirus product, while the computer immune system is still in prototype form. Both aim to replace human analysis of viruses to allow faster response times needed to address increasing rates of new virus creation and spread.
Это интереснейшее исследование того, насколько лента новостей Facebook хороша как механика распространения информации (виральности) в Facebook. Ставит под сомнение некоторые известные приемы посева классических вирусов.
Selas Turkiye Influence And Passivity In Social Media ExcerptedZiya NISANOGLU
This document discusses influence and passivity in social media. It analyzes how information propagates on Twitter and proposes an algorithm to measure user influence that accounts for both popularity and passivity. The algorithm is evaluated using a dataset of 2.5 million Twitter users and is found to better predict URL clicks and identify influential users compared to other measures like page rank or number of followers. The study finds a weak correlation between popularity and influence, with the most influential users not necessarily the most popular. Highly passive users are more likely to be spammers.
TOP-10 Need-to-knows About Social Networking And Where It Is Headed.pdfЕвгений Храмов
1. Social networking has become the most popular online activity worldwide, with over 1.2 billion users accounting for 19% of total online time.
2. The growth of social networking largely mirrored global internet growth, showing that as connectivity increased, people increasingly connected with one another online.
3. The amount of time spent on social networking has more than tripled in recent years, growing predominantly at the expense of time spent on email and instant messaging.
This document discusses a marketing research study on social media usage among college students. It begins with an introduction to social media and its prevalence. The researchers then review literature on different social media platforms and their typical users. Their hypothesis is that most college students use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and LinkedIn, in that order. To study this, the researchers conducted a survey of 88 Florida State University students. Their key findings were that 98% of respondents use Facebook, 88% use Snapchat, and 87% use Instagram. When ranked by preference, Facebook and Instagram were the most preferred platforms, followed by Snapchat. The least preferred was Pinterest.
The document summarizes a seminar held by the Health Sponsorship Council on August 5, 2010. It discusses using social media to promote public health campaigns and provides examples of existing public health campaigns on social media platforms. It also outlines strategies for engaging influencers and communities online to spread health messages and behaviors.
This document discusses the use of social media and web-based tools in healthcare, specifically their potential use to facilitate collaboration between health professionals in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). It provides an overview of the evolution of the internet and social media, describes popular social media platforms and how they are used in healthcare. The document also notes both benefits and potential risks of using social media and the importance of professionalism when engaging online.
Artificial intelligence has helped address many challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. AI has been used for disease surveillance and tracking the spread of the virus faster than health organizations, developing virtual healthcare assistants to provide medical information and screening, and improving diagnostic times by analyzing CT scans to detect pneumonia. Other applications of AI include using facial recognition and thermal cameras to identify individuals with fevers, deploying robots for tasks like food delivery to isolate patients and reduce risk to healthcare workers, expediting vaccine and drug research, and combating the spread of misinformation online. While concerns exist around privacy, AI shows promise in supporting the global response efforts to this public health crisis.
Comscore Top 10 need-to-knows about social networking_and_where_it_is_headedBrian Crotty
Social networking has grown tremendously globally since 2007, with over 1.2 billion people now using social networks. Facebook has been the primary driver of growth, accounting for the vast majority of time spent on social networks worldwide. While adoption and usage varies across countries and regions due to cultural differences, social networking has become integral to the online experience for most internet users globally.
It’s a Social World: Top 10 Need-to-Knows About Social Networking and Where I...Ryan Green
1. Social networking has become the most popular online activity worldwide, accounting for 19% of time spent online. Nearly 1 in 5 minutes online is spent on social networks.
2. While social networking has been widely adopted around the world, there are regional differences in usage. Latin America spends the most time on average (7.6 hours) while Asia Pacific spends the least (under 3 hours).
3. Facebook has become the dominant social network globally, reaching over half the world's online population. It accounts for about 3 out of 4 minutes spent on social networks and 1 out of 7 minutes online overall. Facebook has become the leader in most markets and continues to grow its audience worldwide.
Social Media & Emergencies for the National Capital RegionGreg Licamele
The document discusses the rise of social media and its potential role in emergency communications. It notes that traditional media is declining while social media allows anybody to publish content and engage in two-way communication. Social media is presented as a tool that emergency responders can use to more openly and transparently communicate with the public during all phases of emergency management. The document urges responders to determine their mission and choose appropriate social media tools, and to build social media capacity before emergencies occur.
Social Media to Situational Awareness; Value in not so many wordsmwhite1ca
This document discusses whether social media can provide greater situational awareness for first responders during emergencies. It defines situational awareness as having a clear picture of relevant threat information, and social media as interactive online communication. The document explores factors both for and against social media's ability to create situational awareness. It argues that social media can magnify impacts during crises and that listening to social media posts can provide timely, location-specific information to help first responders and the public understand developing situations. However, social media also has limitations like message length and internet/notification requirements.
Role of Information Communication Technologies in Violence PreventionCat Meurn
This document discusses the potential role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in violence prevention. It begins by providing background on the rise of technologies like smartphones, social media, and remote diagnostics. It then examines several specific ways ICTs have been or could be used to prevent different types of violence, including collective violence (through tools like Ushahidi and hotlines), sexual violence (via reporting apps and awareness campaigns), and intimate partner violence (using texting services and economic empowerment programs). The document argues that while technology is not a panacea, ICTs show promise as part of comprehensive prevention strategies when designed and implemented appropriately.
Technology Partners is an ICT solutions provider focused on smart grid, digital oil field, eGovernment, and security solutions in the MENA region. The document provides an overview of Technology Partners' solutions, projects, and partnerships. It details projects in oil and gas including infrastructure for BP and Weatherford camps in Iraq, a VSAT WAN for the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, and an ERP implementation contract. It also outlines smart grid, government, and telecom solutions and Technology Partners' headquarters and leadership team.
Este documento presenta un catálogo de aplicaciones de comunicación como Facebook, Viber, Skype, Line, Yahoo, MIRC, WhatsApp, WeChat, Twitter, Oovoo y Trillian. Para cada aplicación, se describen sus características principales, ventajas y desventajas. El documento provee enlaces para obtener más información y descargar cada aplicación.
The document discusses how risks and emergency management are changing in the Web 2.0 era. It notes that the Gutenberg printing press revolutionized information sharing, and now the Internet is having a similar effect. Web 2.0 allows for open, collaborative communication and real-time sharing through social media. This was seen after the 2009 earthquake in Abruzzo, Italy, where citizens used Facebook and Twitter to communicate. The document argues that institutions should recognize this transformation and work with volunteer technical communities and citizens to build trust and reliability. A pilot project in Italy aims to crowdsource alerts and information sharing between civil protection groups.
John David Swyden contacted two underage sisters, ages 12 and 14, through Facebook and met with them separately. A Facebook page against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia gained one million likes and inspired street protests of 10 million people in Colombia and 2 million worldwide. Facebook aims to build infrastructure for people's online and offline lives. Some reasons people overshare on Facebook include boosting self-esteem, impression management, and how it influences self-perception. However, others see Facebook as creating a world of exhibitionism.
Viruses exist in a liminal state between living and non-living, integrating themselves into host systems and hijacking their mechanisms to replicate. The author discusses the emergence and proliferation of various viral strains throughout history, from early microbial viruses to more recent digital and cultural viruses. It was not until 1980 that scientists began to recognize computer, retro, and cultural viruses as interconnected elements of a singular viral network, rewriting host codes across domains. However, the author argues that a broader retroviral activity had been operating for much longer, imperceptibly reprogramming biological and cultural systems.
Cyberliteracy involves knowing how to find reliable information online and adapting to technological changes. It means actively participating in online discussions rather than just using technology. Social media allows information sharing but also enables cyberbullying through tools like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Studies show many teens experience cyberbullying like having private information exposed without permission. Cyberbullying has led to suicide in some cases. Schools aim to educate students and parents about cyberliteracy, online safety, privacy, and cyberbullying to help prevent issues.
This document introduces a handbook for journalism education on the topics of journalism, 'fake news', and disinformation. It defines key terms like disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda. It explains that disinformation refers to deliberately misleading information spread to confuse or manipulate people, while misinformation refers to unintentionally misleading information. The document discusses how digital technologies and social media enable the spread of disinformation and undermine trust in journalism. It argues that journalists need to strengthen fact-checking, avoid inadvertently spreading false information, and proactively uncover new forms of disinformation to maintain credibility. The handbook aims to help educate journalists on responsibly addressing this crucial issue.
The impact of social media on how Whitehall works
Sourced from "A dragon's best friend" blog, UKGovCamp 2012 post (http://adragonsbestfriend.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/ukgovcamp-2012/)
Biologically inspired defenses against computer virusesUltraUploader
This document discusses two biologically inspired approaches to computer virus detection and removal: a neural network virus detector that learns to identify infected and uninfected programs, and a computer immune system that can automatically identify, analyze, and remove new viruses from a system. The neural network technique has been incorporated into an IBM commercial antivirus product, while the computer immune system is still in prototype form. Both aim to replace human analysis of viruses to allow faster response times needed to address increasing rates of new virus creation and spread.
Это интереснейшее исследование того, насколько лента новостей Facebook хороша как механика распространения информации (виральности) в Facebook. Ставит под сомнение некоторые известные приемы посева классических вирусов.
Selas Turkiye Influence And Passivity In Social Media ExcerptedZiya NISANOGLU
This document discusses influence and passivity in social media. It analyzes how information propagates on Twitter and proposes an algorithm to measure user influence that accounts for both popularity and passivity. The algorithm is evaluated using a dataset of 2.5 million Twitter users and is found to better predict URL clicks and identify influential users compared to other measures like page rank or number of followers. The study finds a weak correlation between popularity and influence, with the most influential users not necessarily the most popular. Highly passive users are more likely to be spammers.
TOP-10 Need-to-knows About Social Networking And Where It Is Headed.pdfЕвгений Храмов
1. Social networking has become the most popular online activity worldwide, with over 1.2 billion users accounting for 19% of total online time.
2. The growth of social networking largely mirrored global internet growth, showing that as connectivity increased, people increasingly connected with one another online.
3. The amount of time spent on social networking has more than tripled in recent years, growing predominantly at the expense of time spent on email and instant messaging.
This document discusses a marketing research study on social media usage among college students. It begins with an introduction to social media and its prevalence. The researchers then review literature on different social media platforms and their typical users. Their hypothesis is that most college students use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and LinkedIn, in that order. To study this, the researchers conducted a survey of 88 Florida State University students. Their key findings were that 98% of respondents use Facebook, 88% use Snapchat, and 87% use Instagram. When ranked by preference, Facebook and Instagram were the most preferred platforms, followed by Snapchat. The least preferred was Pinterest.
The document summarizes a seminar held by the Health Sponsorship Council on August 5, 2010. It discusses using social media to promote public health campaigns and provides examples of existing public health campaigns on social media platforms. It also outlines strategies for engaging influencers and communities online to spread health messages and behaviors.
This document discusses the use of social media and web-based tools in healthcare, specifically their potential use to facilitate collaboration between health professionals in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). It provides an overview of the evolution of the internet and social media, describes popular social media platforms and how they are used in healthcare. The document also notes both benefits and potential risks of using social media and the importance of professionalism when engaging online.
Artificial intelligence has helped address many challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. AI has been used for disease surveillance and tracking the spread of the virus faster than health organizations, developing virtual healthcare assistants to provide medical information and screening, and improving diagnostic times by analyzing CT scans to detect pneumonia. Other applications of AI include using facial recognition and thermal cameras to identify individuals with fevers, deploying robots for tasks like food delivery to isolate patients and reduce risk to healthcare workers, expediting vaccine and drug research, and combating the spread of misinformation online. While concerns exist around privacy, AI shows promise in supporting the global response efforts to this public health crisis.
Comscore Top 10 need-to-knows about social networking_and_where_it_is_headedBrian Crotty
Social networking has grown tremendously globally since 2007, with over 1.2 billion people now using social networks. Facebook has been the primary driver of growth, accounting for the vast majority of time spent on social networks worldwide. While adoption and usage varies across countries and regions due to cultural differences, social networking has become integral to the online experience for most internet users globally.
It’s a Social World: Top 10 Need-to-Knows About Social Networking and Where I...Ryan Green
1. Social networking has become the most popular online activity worldwide, accounting for 19% of time spent online. Nearly 1 in 5 minutes online is spent on social networks.
2. While social networking has been widely adopted around the world, there are regional differences in usage. Latin America spends the most time on average (7.6 hours) while Asia Pacific spends the least (under 3 hours).
3. Facebook has become the dominant social network globally, reaching over half the world's online population. It accounts for about 3 out of 4 minutes spent on social networks and 1 out of 7 minutes online overall. Facebook has become the leader in most markets and continues to grow its audience worldwide.
Social Media & Emergencies for the National Capital RegionGreg Licamele
The document discusses the rise of social media and its potential role in emergency communications. It notes that traditional media is declining while social media allows anybody to publish content and engage in two-way communication. Social media is presented as a tool that emergency responders can use to more openly and transparently communicate with the public during all phases of emergency management. The document urges responders to determine their mission and choose appropriate social media tools, and to build social media capacity before emergencies occur.
Social Media to Situational Awareness; Value in not so many wordsmwhite1ca
This document discusses whether social media can provide greater situational awareness for first responders during emergencies. It defines situational awareness as having a clear picture of relevant threat information, and social media as interactive online communication. The document explores factors both for and against social media's ability to create situational awareness. It argues that social media can magnify impacts during crises and that listening to social media posts can provide timely, location-specific information to help first responders and the public understand developing situations. However, social media also has limitations like message length and internet/notification requirements.
Role of Information Communication Technologies in Violence PreventionCat Meurn
This document discusses the potential role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in violence prevention. It begins by providing background on the rise of technologies like smartphones, social media, and remote diagnostics. It then examines several specific ways ICTs have been or could be used to prevent different types of violence, including collective violence (through tools like Ushahidi and hotlines), sexual violence (via reporting apps and awareness campaigns), and intimate partner violence (using texting services and economic empowerment programs). The document argues that while technology is not a panacea, ICTs show promise as part of comprehensive prevention strategies when designed and implemented appropriately.
Technology Partners is an ICT solutions provider focused on smart grid, digital oil field, eGovernment, and security solutions in the MENA region. The document provides an overview of Technology Partners' solutions, projects, and partnerships. It details projects in oil and gas including infrastructure for BP and Weatherford camps in Iraq, a VSAT WAN for the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, and an ERP implementation contract. It also outlines smart grid, government, and telecom solutions and Technology Partners' headquarters and leadership team.
Este documento presenta un catálogo de aplicaciones de comunicación como Facebook, Viber, Skype, Line, Yahoo, MIRC, WhatsApp, WeChat, Twitter, Oovoo y Trillian. Para cada aplicación, se describen sus características principales, ventajas y desventajas. El documento provee enlaces para obtener más información y descargar cada aplicación.
Este documento narra un viaje en coche de 300 km desde Lucena (Córdoba) hasta Gergal (Almería), donde Sony visitará a un amigo de la infancia. Durante el viaje, Sony habla sin parar y comparte historias de su vida. Aunque es un personaje extraño, también es sincero y le ayuda al narrador a ver la vida con más perspectiva y alegría. Al pasar por pueblos como Priego de Córdoba, recuerdan buenos momentos y disfrutan de la música y el paisaje durante el viaje
COMUNITAC es una empresa de comunicación fundada en 2003 en Bilbao que ofrece servicios innovadores de publicidad, marketing y tecnología. Gestiona varios soportes publicitarios digitales y exteriores dinámicos. Proporciona consultoría, desarrollo de soluciones tecnológicas, y acciones de comunicación integral. Ha trabajado con diversas empresas e instituciones públicas y privadas en eventos deportivos y culturales.
"Pimp Up Your Stuff!": How To Exploit The Social Weblisbk
Using social web services like blogs, wikis, social networks and video sharing sites can help maximize access to an organization's resources, ideas and brand. These services allow engagement with potential audiences and monitoring how the organization is discussed online. An example is given of the Brooklyn Museum which uses services like blogs, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube very effectively. It is concluded that ignoring the potential of social media risks losing out to peers, and using these services can support an organization's mission.
The document contains templates for creating Gantt charts and flow charts with different levels of complexity. It includes templates for charts ranging from 1 to 6 boxes, templates for different time periods from 1 month to 12 months, templates for different levels of nested boxes from 1 to 5 levels, and templates for different types of circular and directed flows. Each template includes placeholders for tasks, subtasks, titles, and time periods to allow customizable charts to be built.
Clara Adams was the only female passenger aboard the inaugural flight of the German Dornier DO-X flying boat from Rio de Janeiro to New York in 1931. She documented her experiences in a book about the six-week trip. In 1928, Adams purchased the first transatlantic air ticket ever sold to a woman for a flight aboard the airship Graf Zeppelin from North America to Europe. She later flew on the inaugural flights of the Hindenburg airship in 1936 and was the first woman to fly around the world by air in 1939, covering over 150,000 miles in 16 days.
Posle Portlanda, sledeća destinacija je Dallas.
Glavne teme su marketing i prodaja:
/ kreiranje tematskih fb stranica umesto čisto kompanijskih
/ ako znaš svoju ličnost i možeš da prepoznaš ličnost kod klijenta,
komunikacija je daleko efektnija
/ mapa koja u sitna crevca prikazuje šta te sve očekuje u procesu akvizicije
El CTCR es un centro tecnológico sin ánimo de lucro que brinda soluciones tecnológicas a empresas del sector del calzado para aumentar su competitividad. Fue inaugurado en 2007 y atiende al 97% de las empresas calzadistas riojanas. Ofrece servicios como diseño 3D, corte automático y moldeado de prototipos rápido. Los materiales usados incluyen cuero, textiles y componentes. El centro promueve la sostenibilidad mediante el cálculo de la huella de carbono y el
How to Achieve Face-Melting Content Marketing ROIJason Miller
This document summarizes Jason Miller's presentation on achieving face-melting content marketing ROI. Some key points include:
1. Empathize with customers at different levels, from understanding immediate wants to creating solutions for problems customers don't realize they have.
2. Create a "Big Rock" piece of long-form content that owns a particular topic or conversation to drive leads and sales.
3. Organize a marketing team with roles to lay groundwork, fuel content creation and demand generation, similar to the specialized roles in a successful band.
ConvergeIT is a structured cabling solution from Siemon that integrates voice, data, video, audio, wireless, building automation, security, and other low-voltage applications over a single network using various cabling media like Cat5e, Cat6, Cat6A, and Cat7, providing benefits like reduced costs, simplified management, support for emerging technologies, and enabling the cabling system to act as a true building asset.
Logs are one of the most important pieces of analytical data in a cloud-based service infrastructure. At any point in time, service owners and operators need to understand the sta- tus of each infrastructure component for fault monitoring, to assess feature usage, and to monitor business processes. Application developers, as well as security personnel, need access to historic information for debugging and forensic in- vestigations.
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Write a 500 words essay about thisThe topics we covered last wee.docxjohnbbruce72945
The document discusses various topics related to privacy, security, and surveillance in today's technological world. It notes that increased surveillance by governments and companies has raised concerns about privacy and civil liberties being impinged. The document explores different views on whether increased surveillance is justified for national security purposes or goes too far. It also discusses how new technologies like social media are impacting how information is shared and potentially monitored.
Write a 500 words essay about thisThe topics we covered last wee.docxhelzerpatrina
Write a 500 words essay about this
The topics we covered last week (privacy) and this week (security and surveillance) are getting a lot of attention in the news. Edward Snowden's revelations revealed that the U.S. government is conducting surveillance of its citizens. New technologies like smart TVs and personal digital assistants (e.g., Google Home, Alexa) are passively listening at all times so they can respond if you engage their voice-activated features. CCTVs are increasingly common in public spaces. In addition, advances in mobile technology have empowered the public to take and share video of everything ranging from racist rants (Links to an external site.) to police brutality (Links to an external site.) and airplane passengers being dragged off a plane (Links to an external site.). Even today (Sunday, 16 April 2017), we are getting breaking news reports of a homicide video posted on Facebook (Links to an external site.).
What are your concerns about the increased surveillance? Do you think it is justified because of increased threats to our national security? Do you think a lot of the concerns about rights being impinged are overblown? How do you think the role of the public in capturing activities will change the way companies and/or the police do business, if at all?
Then respond to this whether you agree or disagree
Privacy and security are very important in today's world of technology, but with the way things have been going, privacy and security seem to have gone out of the window. Most recently, the Senate voted to allow ISPs to sell your browsing history to advertisers. In a discussion I had in another class, my professor was mentioning how UMD is in a 100 mile radius of the NSA and D.C., and ~15 years ago, if you said a number of words such as: president, assassination, bomb, plane, fire, etc. your call would be flagged and would be monitored for terrorist activity. The USA Patriot Act was signed into law by George Bush back in 2001 after 9/11, which allowed for more surveillance and more investigations to protect our country. What the act essentially did though was make regular, innocent American citizens, suspect of being a terrorist. More and more surveillance cameras began appearing on streets and on the corners of government buildings. The Patriot Act received differing opinions from Americans, some believe that it was necessary to prevent any further terrorism, while others believed it was a huge, unconstitutional invasion of privacy. It is very interesting to me because I take personal security and privacy pretty important. On my computer I use ad-blockers and anti-tracking services just to make sure my information isn’t stored. I used to use a browser called Tor, which is an anonymizing browser that sends your internet traffic through a special network that encrypts your data, but it ended up being too slow for me. The Tor browser has been hailed for its anonymity and the possibilities with it. I also like to caref ...
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The concept of viral marketing has been discussed in the literature for over 15 years, since Jeffrey Rayport first introduced the term in 1996. However, the more widespread use of social media has recently pushed this idea to a whole new level. We provide insight into the relationship between social media and viral marketing, and illustrate the six steps executives should take in order to dance the social media/viral marketing waltz. We define viral marketing as electronic word-of-mouth whereby some form of marketing message related to a company, brand, or product is transmitted in an exponentially growing way–—often through the use of social media applications. We consider the three conditions that need to be fulfilled to create a viral marketing epidemic (i.e., giving the right message to the right messengers in the right environment) and present four different groups of social media viral marketing campaigns (nightmares, strokes-of-luck, homemade issues, and triumphs). We conclude with five points of caution that managers should heed when trying to launch their own viral marketing campaign.
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The new Pandemic Preparedness Citizen's Guide, edited by Sarah Booth, Kelsey Hills-Evans & Scott Teesdale to incorporate information around the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
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Social Media could be a of Threat for an “Infodemic” throughout COVID-19 Pand...asclepiuspdfs
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Information disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and ...friendscb
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A plague of viruses biological, computer and marketing
1. 1
A Plague of Viruses: Biological, Computer and Marketing1
Jeffrey Boase and Barry Wellman
Sept 21, 2001
Current Sociology, forthcoming
Abstract
We analyze the transfer of biological, computer and marketing viruses. Despite differences
between these three types of viruses, network structure affects their spread in similar ways. We
distinguish between two forms of networks – densely knit and ramified – and show that biological,
computer and marketing viruses all behave in similar ways depending on the form of network.
Densely knit networks promote the quick dissemination of a virus, and increase the odds that
many of the members will become infected. Ramified networks allow a virus to disperse widely,
jumping between different milieus. In the end, the spread of viruses in the real world involves a
combination of both densely knit and ramified networks, which we call “glocalization”.
Viruses Thrive on Networks
As the twentieth century becomes the twenty-first, biological viruses have been
joined by two other types: computer viruses and viral marketing. Are there similarities
between biological viruses, computer viruses and viral marketing other than the common
term in their names?
All three depend on networks for their spread rather than growing in situ. A virus
spreads through contact, be it purposeful or unaware juxtaposition. Without networks,
viruses would lead lonely lives without affecting anyone except for the original hosts. For
example, biological viruses do not come from toilet seats: They are transmitted person-
to-person (or at least species-to-species). Computer viruses almost always flow between
human beings. Viral marketing, where Harry tells Sally what cool brand to buy or what
Internet petition to sign, is inherently and consciously person-to-person. Even at its
weakest form, viral marketing is by observation, as when one high school student
observes the star quarterback wearing Fubu (last year) or Ecko (last month) clothing.
Just as viruses differ, so too do the networks of biological, computer and
marketing viruses. One similarity is that frequent contact increases the likelihood of
"catching" a virus. Another is that densely knit groups accelerate the spread of a virus but
keep it within a confined population. By contrast, viruses spread more slowly in sparsely
knit networks but will jump to new milieus and ultimately spread more widely. We
examine here all three kinds of viruses – biological, computer, and marketing – their
similarities and their differences. We are especially interested in how different kinds of
networks affect how such viruses operate.
Before we compare these three kinds of viruses according to network structure,
we first compare them:
1
We appreciate the advice of Alden Klovdahl and Martina Morris with respect to biological viruses,
Danyel Fisher and Douglas Tygar with respect to computer viruses, and Eszter Hargittai, Valdis Krebs, Bill
Richards, Emmanuel Rosen, Patrick Thoburn and Matthew Stradiotto with respect to viral marketing.
2. 2
Biological Viruses: Biological viruses have been the best studied of the three2
.
Please note that our comments here refer to bacteria as well as viruses, but we use the
term “biological virus” to preserve the literary conceit that organizes this issue.
The preponderance of biological viruses need contact with humans or other
animals to be transmitted, although some may be transmitted indirectly by human-aided
contact (biological warfare; tainted animal feed). Transmitter and receiver must be near
each other, but they need not have any social contact (see Table 1). The need for social
proximity or contact means that the speed by which these viruses spread is low. In many
cases, the young are the most vulnerable.
Biological viruses frequently mutate. Preventing their spread requires physical
isolation, tracing the spread of the viruses is hard, and eradication and healing is
accomplished with great difficulty by medical personnel. Widespread prevalence can
have important second-order consequences, with the debilitation of a population through
disease and the desire of apparently-healthy individuals to flee the infected area and
quarantine the ill.
Computer Viruses: Computer viruses are not born but deliberately made by
either hackers or cyber-warfare experts. They are commonly transmitted by the Internet,
although file-sharing is another vector just as needle-sharing is for biological viruses.
Like biological viruses, transmission often occurs without deliberate human intent (after
initial creation).
Transmitter and receiver need not be physically proximate, but must have
connected communications, most typically the Internet. The transmitter must minimally
have awareness of the receiver's Internet address. In many cases, social ties are vectors.
Friends and acquaintances inadvertently infect friends by sending viruses that have been
hiding in one system as attachments to an existing file: Strongly tied close friends are
especially apt to do this because they have the most contact. In other cases, the virus
ransacks the host transmitter's Internet address book: The greater number of weak ties in
such books means that more acquaintances will be infected than close friends.
Children and teenagers are probably the most vulnerable because of their general
reluctance to take protective measures. Although one might think that corporate
executives, protected by well-organized information technology units, would be the least
vulnerable, large organizations have repeatedly suffered virus attacks because of their
reliance on Microsoft Outlook, a favorite target of hackers (Taylor, 1999).
Computer viruses transmit at hyper-speed. The Nimda worm spread so fast that
the New Brunswick (Canada) provincial government had to shut down their computer
systems for a day, September19, 2001 and use "old-fashioned" techniques. "We're using
phones; we're typing; we're conducting a lot of business face-to-face and by fax,"
reported Susan Shalala of the Supply and Services Department (Canadian Press, 2001).
Viruses mutate readily, as hackers obtain the original virus and use "script kits" to modify
it. Dealing with computer viruses has itself created sizable corporations providing anti-
virus solutions (e.g., www.symantec.com). Anti-virus measures include interception
programs to recognize and neutralize viruses as they enter a system and reverse path
tracing to identify a virus's origins.
2
See also Ellen Gee’s and Maticka-Tyndale’s papers in this issue.
3. 3
The social consequences of a virus attack range from the annoyance of having to
maintain up-to-date anti-virus software and backups, through the personal difficulties of
losing information on one's hard disk, to serious organizational disruption. The
embedding of the Internet in the developed world's everyday life means that large-scale
or well-placed attacks might cause societal paralysis and the resulting socioeconomic
isolation of units within the society.
Viral Marketing: Although the practice has been around for millennia, viral
marketing, sometimes called “buzz marketing” is the newest recognized type of virus.
Viral marketing refers to the marketing of a product or service by word of mouth. It dates
back to Biblical days, as when Jesus said to his disciples, "Go ye into all the world, and
preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). Unlike biological and computer
viruses, many people welcome viral marketing because it gives them new information, a
chance of feeling socially accepted, being in the know, and following the latest fashion.
Although this form of marketing tends to be overlooked because it is not easily traced,
word of mouth may make or break any product, despite formal advertising (Rosen, 2000).
The idea of having commercial viral marketing campaigns was not introduced
until 1940’s (Rosen, 2000), and corporations rarely choose it as their primary mode of
advertising. Diffusion can be through strong ties who are trusted with their opinions, or
through weak ties who observe the tag lines appended to messages. But the virus can also
spread merely through observation of physically-proximate role models / “aspirational
leaders” – such as the stars of high school sports teams (Thorburn, personal
communication, 2001). It flexibly supplies needed and wanted information at low cost.
The interpersonal nature of viral marketing means that it conveys information more
precisely and efficiently than the mass media to people who have higher probabilities of
wanting the information.
In the 1950’s, Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld (1955) created the classic concept
of the “two-step flow of communication”: persuasive communication diffused through
the mass media (step one) as interpreted by influential people through their interpersonal
relationships (step two). In Medical Innovation: A Diffusion Study, James Coleman et al.
(1966) showed how knowledge about drugs spread informally among physicians3
. He
found a snowball effect where well-connected doctors act as early adopters and then
influence non-adopters.
A research field soon developed, “the diffusion of information” (Rogers and
Kincaid, 1981; Rogers, 1995). Perhaps its greatest proponents were public health
officials, who soon became persuaded that health information about contraception use
was best given to Third Worlders through interpersonal ties (Valente, 1995; Valente and
Watkins, 1997). It might be said in such cases that viral marketing is used in such
situations to combat biological viruses. Yet, the most extensive use of viral marketing has
not been to prevent disease but to promote various forms of contraception.
The Internet has brought its own novel forms of viral marketing because the
technology makes it easy to pass on messages – to one or one hundred closest friends.
Computer-based viral marketing takes several forms:
1. There is the conscious circulation of petitions or similar appeals to do
something. For example, a petition for the United Nations to look into the possibility of
3
Also see Van den Bulte and Lilien’s critique (2001).
4. 4
election fraud during the 2001 presidential election in the United States. We have
received similar petitions several times in the past month, and many times in the past
decade.
2. There is the forwarding of rumors and humorous stories. Many people, for
example, maintain “joke lists” which circulate purported humor for short or long periods.
For example, one of us has received the story about the Nieman Marcus cookie recipe
twenty-seven times in the past eight years.4
3. There has been quite successful latent viral marketing by taglines to email. For
example, some Internet service providers such as Hotmail and Yahoo provide free email
to users who agree to have a phrase added to every mail telling the receiver that they can
get free email by going to http://explorer.msn.com. We will say more about this later.
4. There is a movement now in the computer game industry to use the Internet as
a vehicle for promotion. "Many of the new games are viral, meaning that they permit
players to spread the games by e-mail to friends." (Marriott, 2001: D1)
Viruses as Social Networks: Densely Knit Groups and Ramified Networks
The spread of viruses is shaped by both the nature of interpersonal relationships
and the composition and structure of the interpersonal networks of which these ties are a
part. Social network analysis has developed concepts and procedures for analyzing such
networks (Marsden and Laumann, 1984; Wasserman and Faust, 1994; Wellman, 1988;
Wellman 1997; Garton et al., 1997). We use the social network approach here to compare
the similarities and differences in the forms of ties and networks that shape the movement
of biological, computer and marketing viruses. In doing so, we show how the structure of
social networks – the pattern of relationships that connect people and their computers –
has important consequences for the spread of viruses: how much of the population is
infected and how fast this infection takes place.
There are two structural archetypes. In densely knit groups, most members know
each other, are in frequent contact with each other, but have little contact with outsiders
(Figure 1). In network analytic terms, such groups are densely knit and tightly-bounded
(Garton et al., 1997; Wellman 1997). By contrast, in ramified networks, few members
are in contact with each, and a large portion of interactions are with outsiders. Such
networks are sparsely knit and loosely-bounded. Reality, of course, often occurs in the
continuum between these archetypes. A common one in contemporary societies is
glocalization: rather densely knit clusters of relationships (usually at home, at work, and
with kin) that also have many ramified ties to other people and groups (Wellman 1999;
Hampton 2001). For the sake of clarity, we concentrate here on two ideal types: densely
knit groups and ramified networks.
4
See www.neimanmarcus.com/about/cookie_recipe.jhtml; www.urbanlegends.com/food/two-fifty/neiman-
marcus.html.
5. 5
Figure 1: Three Models of Network Structure.
Densely Knit Groups
A virus can move quickly within a densely knit network because almost every
member has frequent contact with every other member. This is true for all kinds of
viruses. Densely knit groups allow for synergy, in which a particular group member is
often exposed to a virus through frequent contact with other group members and, in turn,
exposes and re-exposes other group members to the same virus.
“Homophily,” birds of a feather flocking together (McPherson et al., 2001;
McPherson and Smith-Lovin, 1987), increases the likelihood that biological, computer
and marketing viruses will spread even more quickly through a densely knit group. Not
only are people in densely knit groups in direct contact with each other, they also tend to
share common characteristics, such as socioeconomic status, tastes, or attitudes
(Erickson, 1988; Feld 1981, 1982). They are also have considerable influence over each
other’s decision processes (Cross et at., 2001). This increases the likelihood that they will
have similar patterns of behavior and hence be more likely to be exposed to the same
virus.
Biological Viruses: Consider how the AIDS-causing HIV biological virus may
have spread in the San Francisco Bay area by this kind of group synergy in the late 70’s
and early 80’s. During this time the gay community there was a closely knit group, with
frequent unprotected sex between members. The ideology of sexual freedom as having
multiple partners and the relatively bounded structure of the group meant there was often
overlap between sexual partners (Rotello, 1997). Overlap caused the virus to spread
quickly within the group.
Computer Viruses: There is reason to believe that computer viruses spread within
densely knit groups of computers in much the same way. A computer virus is a file which
has the ability to attach itself to other files (Aunger, 2001). Once these files are modified ,
they will carry out a list of instructions called a protocol. If a virus lies latent until a
certain date or a trigger event, it is called a “trojan” after the Greek legend of the Trojan
Horse.
6. 6
Both biological and computer viruses are most successful at spreading if they do
not rapidly destroy their hosts. This is the “stickiness factor” (Gladwell, 2000: 200). A
living host will better allow the virus to spread to other computers before it is caught by
another person or computer, replicate itself, and continue the chain migration process. If
the virus cannot execute its protocol because of incompatible software, then it does not
stick to the computer. If it does not stick, it does not have the opportunity to spread. This
is why a virus which does not completely wipe out an entire computer hard drive tends to
spread widely. Leaving most of the operating system intact allows a virus to spread itself
to even more computers. This was the case with SirCam (Vamosi, 2001), which may lie
dormant until October 16, 2001 when it may “awake” to erase hard drives or fill them
with garbage. SirCam was the most widely distributed worm or virus in July, infecting
many FBI computer systems (Dlunginski, 2001: 30).
Before the Internet became a popular way to share data files, computer viruses
were usually transmitted by floppy disk from computer to computer. It is no surprise that
group members who are frequently sharing files are also likely to share viruses. If
Monika, Uyen and Uzma are all working on different parts of a research proposal, a virus
on Monika’s computer can be transmitted to Uyen’s computer when she shares her
spreadsheet analysis. As with transmission of a human virus, overlap in contact increases
exposure to the virus. The odds that Uzma will get the virus on her machine doubles if
both Monika and Uyen have the virus.
Today, computer viruses usually spread through email. Unlike the earlier days,
contemporary viruses do not have to wait until a user contacts another person. Many
viruses are designed to read an infected user’s address book and use it to transmit the
message to those on the list. For example, the SirCam “worm” virus itself does not
“know” in advance what computers to infect, it obtains a list of email contacts from the
host’s address book. Using this list it will disperse email to all list members, attaching
itself as a file. If the recipient opens the file, the cycle will continue again (Johnston,
2000).
Those in densely knit groups will be especially open to the resulting synergy. This
means that if even a few people in the group have the virus, everyone in that group will
be emailed the virus several times. The more it is emailed to the group, the more likely it
is that others in the group will open it and send it to the group yet again. Consider the
email address book of someone who is only involved in one densely knit group of six
persons. Everyone in this group knows everyone else, and they all have each other’s
email addresses. If one member of this group has a virus, the virus will use his address
book to send itself to everyone else in the group. Keeping in mind that everyone else in
the group also has each other’s email address, the virus will set off a chain reaction where
each person in the group will receive the same virus a total of five times. In effect, the
virus will have been transferred a total of thirty-six times. Even if one person in the group
catches the virus with a virus checker, each person will still receive the same virus four
other times. In computers as well as biology, overlap in contact between group members
allows a virus to spread quickly within the group.
As of now, the August 2001 “Code Red II” virus has been one of the most
destructive viruses to date. Code Red II was designed to use homophily to aid its spread.
As Valdis Krebs explained to the Social Network Analysts’ listserve (2001), this virus
“seeks out clusters of nearby systems, knowing that pockets of Internet addresses will
7. 7
often use the same software. Birds of a feather flock together, and so do servers running
the same OS.” Having access to common software allows Code Red II to use just one
simple protocol. This protocol can take advantage of a system’s weakness, then spread
through computer networks to similar systems (Aunger, 2001). Because these similar
systems tend to be in dense networks, the resulting synergy increases the rate of
infection5
.
One rumor has it that Code Red "was part of a bigger scheme that was
orchestrated by the Russian Mafia to rob a bunch of banks electronically during all the
confusion." (Dvorak, 2001: 71) The discovery of the Nimda virus/worm exactly one
week after the Sept 11 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon spurred fears
that the virus was the next phase of the attack.
Viral Marketing: In the case of viral marketing, densely groups would lead to a
fashion developing among a small group of people. It would be persistent, because it
would be mutually reinforcing, but it would not spread widely.
Homophily is important when trying to understand viral marketing. Because
people within these groups have similar tastes, they are likely to buy similar products
(Rosen, 2000). Once something is introduced into a densely knit group, everyone in the
group is sure to find out about it quickly (Rogers, 1995). Furthermore, they are likely to
buy the same product themselves. As Emanuel Rosen (2000) points out, this can have
either positive or negative consequences for a producer. If a product is accepted into such
a group, then the producer is likely to maintain that market. However, if the product is
not accepted, the producer will have a very difficult time breaking into that market.
A product requiring cooperating others to have the same product can gain wide
acceptance within a densely knit group when a sizable plurality start using the it. Such
“network externalities” occur when a product becomes more valuable as more people use
it (Haruvy and Ashutosh, 2001; Van Hove, 1999). For example, PayPal facilitates the
transfer of money over the Internet to pay for purchases. To use PayPal, both parties must
have accounts. Once a few members of a densely knit group are using PayPal, other
group members will be tend to use it for the sake of simplicity (Bodow 2001; Van Hove,
1999).
The Pox video game also uses this principle. The games operate by allowing users
to battle others within a radius of a few meters (Tierney, 2001; Heinzl, 2001). Once a few
(teenage) users have the game, others in their group see them playing it and want in on
the action. As with computer and biological viruses, once access to a densely knit group
is obtained, the marketing virus quickly infects many of its members.
The telephone and the Internet are classic examples of how network structures
affect flows of information. As each telephone or Internet account is useless unless others
can be reached, universal standards allow global connectivity. By contrast, Microsoft and
AOL have competing standards for instant messaging. Their two systems are mutually
unintelligible, so that all persons in a densely knit group are impelled to all adopt one
instant messaging product or the other, in contrast to the variety of personal computers
they own.
5
Computerization facilitates the construction of animated maps describing the spread of computer viruses
(CAIDA, 2001).
8. 8
Ramified Networks
If a virus could only spread within a densely knit group, then it would remain
isolated and not spread on such a large scale. Ramified networks do not spread viruses as
thoroughly within a defined population as within a densely knit groups. However, they
reach out to a larger and more heterogeneous population. Viruses diffuse through a
population in a curve that spreads rapidly when it moves to additional social circles.
Eventually, diffusion levels off as friends of friends turn out already to have been virally
infected by carriers who are more proximate in their social networks (Rapoport and
Yuan, 1989).
“Structural holes” (Burt, 1992) between groups are filled by people who are
connected to more than one group. These key gatekeepers and brokers are the means by
which a virus spreads out through ramified networks. Through the use of brokers – those
who have membership in many different groups and thus link groups – a virus can travel
between groups and spread throughout an entire population. Often, those linking two
groups have “weak ties” with members of either or both groups. While strong ties stay
within groups and thus circulate the same information and viruses (Granovetter, 1982),
weak ties are more apt to have different social characteristics than the core members of a
group (Feld, 1982). Hence, weak ties are more likely to spread the virus to new social
milieus.
Biological Viruses: With respect to the HIV biological virus, the brokers have
included men who are sexually active, and had sex outside their group. These outsiders
brought the virus to other groups, which eventually led to the emergence of HIV in the
population at large (Rotello, 1997). A more recent example is the epidemic of syphilis in
Baltimore during the mid-1990s. Although syphilis was already prevalent in the low
socioeconomic housing projects of East and West Baltimore, it spread throughout the city
when these housing projects were torn down, and its residents moved to other parts of the
city Moving to different parts of the city led former project residents to have more sexual
contact with others, thereby dispersing the virus throughout the entire city (Potterate
1985; Gladwell, 2000).
Computer Viruses: Just as the spread of biological viruses depends on the
patterns of human contact networks, the spread of computer viruses depends on how
computers are networked, or linked to each other. Computer viruses spread differently on
Local Area Networks (or LANs) than on Wide Area Networks (WANs). LANs have the
ability to share designated files called broadcast packets with all of the computers on the
network. If one computer has a virus, then it is likely that all computers on that network
have the virus which was sent in the form of a broadcast packet. This is an extreme
version of a densely knit network, because all computers are connected and communicate
with each other. By contrast, WANs have a dedicated “router” that takes apart all
computer files that have been sent and then directs them to a specific destination. This
means that a virus may be caught and isolated before it is transmitted to an entire network
of computers.
The way in which computers are connected is only one aspect of viral spread. A
virus can also spread through email by using certain well connected individuals as
brokers. Recall how computer viruses, such as SirCam, have the ability to read email
address books and send virus-bearing messages to those listed in the address books.
9. 9
People who only have membership in one or two dense groups are at high risk of
receiving a virus common to those particular groups. But brokers have the additional
problem of being exposed to an eclectic variety of viruses from the many different groups
in which they are involved. This also means that they are the ones who are more likely to
introduce new viruses to a group.
For example, let us assume that one member of a six-person group is a broker.
This broker is connected to one other densely knit group of ten people in each group. In a
worst case scenario the broker would receive the virus five times from the one group.
Each time she would send it to the other groups of ten, sending the virus a total of fifty
times. The broker would also have the added risk of receiving different viruses from the
other groups. So not only would the broker send and receive more viruses than the people
of only one group, she would also have the extra risk of sending and receiving new and
different viruses. It is not difficult to see why brokers play prominent roles in spreading a
virus far and wide.
Viral Marketing: Because the Internet amplifies the effects of viral marketing, it
speeds up the proliferation of “buzz” across groups. Weak ties play a key role in the
spread of word of mouth through ramified networks because the Internet allows people to
maintain their weak ties with little effort. Instead of contacting weak ties with the
telephone, people can use email to drop a quick line to a sizable list. As new information
often comes from socially heterogeneous weak ties, there is ample evidence of the
usefulness of acquiring new information from weak ties on the Internet (Wellman and
Gulia, 1999). For example, singer Alanis Morrissette believes that file sharing programs
such as Napster can give musicians useful exposure. In her words “Mp3.com and Napster
and companies like them established a link between artist and audience that hinted at a
world without barriers.” (Toronto Computes!, 2001: 26)
Marketers tell us that viral marketing has been especially used in persuading
teenagers to adopt new fads. For example, a sports shoe company hired a viral marketing
firm to identify admired role models in high schools. These “aspirational leaders” (the
marketers’ term) gave free shoes to teens leaders. By wearing these and talking about
them, the teen leaders create a persuasive demand for the new product.
The free email service, Hotmail (and similar ones such as Juno and Yahoo Mail),
successfully use viral marketing to promote its service. In exchange for getting Hotmail’s
free email service, account holders must agree to have a tagline automatically added to
the bottom of all messages, “Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at
http://explorer.msn.com”. Two months after their launch, Hotmail had over 100,000
registered users (Rosen, 2000). Their messages – and the accompanying Hotmail ads – go
to all members of their ramified networks, intimates and acquaintances alike. Thus viral
marketing is used to advertise the Hotmail service without any overt action on the part of
the sender. Moreover, there is a modeling effect: Harry the recipient observes that Sally
the sender uses Hotmail, and may think “if it’s good enough for Sally, it’s good enough
for me.” Hotmail makes it easier to sign-up, because it includes in each tagline a
clickable web address for new subscriptions.
Viral marketing can be used to sell ideas as well as products (Chattoe, 1998).
Many readers have been asked to sign petitions, passed on electronically from hand-to-
hand. More immediately, we are writing this the day after airplanes crashed into the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the United States. We have already received two
10. 10
political statements – one calling for attacks on “Muslim terrorists” and one asking us to
persuade people to avoid war. Someone we do not know wrote each statement, but close
friends forwarded them to us – and to others on sizable lists of friends.
The structural position of people in networks affects how information will flow.
Those who are especially well connected (network analysts say they have “high degree”)
or connect different groups (high “betweeness”) spread information the most rapidly
(Wasserman and Faust, 1994). Brokers are important for viral marketing because of their
structural position.6
Or as Everett Rogers puts it, “diffusion campaigns are more likely to
be successful if change agents identify and mobilize opinion leaders” (1995, p. 354; see
also Valente and Davis, 1999; Weimann, 1994).
At times marketing agents can use these brokers to their advantage. In
“leapfrogging”, a marketer finds a person who is well connected to several groups and
then gives that person a free product (Rosen, 2000). The marketer does this in hopes that
the chosen broker will spread the word about their product to their multiple groups. The
fad “leaps” between different group and social milieus, spreading the word far and wide.
According to Gladwell, “one of these exceptional people found out about the trend, and
through social connections and energy and enthusiasm and personality spread the word.”
(2000: 22). Leapfrogging brokers have the ability to make a buzz about a product through
their personality, social capital and structural position (Frank, 1998).
The cultural element of viral marketing sets it apart from biological and computer
viral exchange. With almost any product, there will always be trendsetters. Trendsetters
are the few people who will seek out new products and essentially decide whether or not
they are “cool”. Cool products will be adopted by this group before they become popular,
and will be abandoned once they become too mainstream. Unlike a computer or human
virus, a buzz about a product will only occur if it fits into this cultural construct of “cool”.
Social networks are doubly important for bringing products from small groups of
trendsetters to the wider public. This is because they convey both sheer awareness and
cultural approval. Trendy fashion companies, such as Reebok and Nike, have
“coolhunter” employees. Coolhunters seek the new fashions of trendsetters, and they then
act as brokers, by bringing these trends back to their company designers and eventually to
stores (Gladwell, 1997). In this way brokers are important not only in bringing a product
into the market as in leapfrogging, but also in bringing the market to a product.
Killing a Virus
Until now, controlling computer viruses has mostly depended on anti-virus
software checking suspected viruses against known templates. This does nothing to
protect against new viruses. However, the control of biological and computer viruses may
be converging. IBM and Symantec are jointly mounting an effort "to create a full
biology-inspired immune system for computer protection, so systems can deal with
invaders as automatically as your body deals with microorganisms.” (Dlunginski, 2001:
30).
Brokers can be important for stopping the spread of viruses as well as for
fostering their spread. A traditional method for dealing with a virus has been to
quarantine it. In this situation all people afflicted with a virus are isolated from outside
6
Such brokers are referred to in marketing as “cosmopolites”, “hubs” or “opinion leaders” (Rosen, 2000).
11. 11
contact. In effect, they are not allowed to come in contact with people who might act as
brokers and take a virus to new groups. Through quarantine either the virus dies out on its
own or the hosts die. In either case, the removal of weak ties means that a virus stays
confined within a few groups.
The quarantine method is not always possible. People who obtain a computer
virus are not likely to forgo their Internet access, just as those who have obtained a
biological virus are not likely to become isolated from their social ties. There is also the
further problem that often people are not aware that they have a virus until it has already
spread. For these reasons, precautions must be taken to limit the spread of a virus before
it has even been contracted. For people, proper hygiene, eating habits, and safe sex
practices help limit the contraction of viruses. In the case of computers, virus checkers
and firewalls must be in place. This is especially important for brokers who may come
into contact with carriers from a variety of groups.
While prevention by means of genetic alteration is still a possibility, this option
still has questionable moral considerations (Burfoot, 1999). Inadvertent prevention may
also occur with the spread of biological viruses. Brokers who have passed the primary
infection stage of HIV and still have functioning antibody responses inadvertently act as
firewalls or buffers which isolate HIV to a number of small clusters. People in this stage
of HIV infection are not as likely to pass the virus on to those outside the infected group,
because they do not have a very high rate of infection (Friedman et al., 2000).
Conclusion: Understanding the Glocal Habitat of a Virus
To say a virus is transmitted through a network is a useful beginning, but the real
questions are what kinds of viruses and what kinds of networks? Although biological,
computer and marketing viruses have different constituent elements and processes, they
all are bound by the realities of social network transmission. By using two contrasting
ideal types of networks, we have shown how network structure can shape the movement
of three different kinds of viruses.
Densely knit networks, in which contact is frequent among all members, increases
the potential that an infected group member will transmit a virus to almost all of the
group. The quick spread within a densely knit group is amplified by the tendency of these
groups to be in similar milieus: be they places they go to, computer platforms, or fashion
sense.
Ramified networks stand at the other structural extreme and have different
consequences for a virus. These networks have infrequent contact between members, and
no two members will be in contact with a similar set of people or machines. These
networks provide a bridge in which a new virus can travel from one group to the next,
allowing many different kinds of viruses to reach many different kinds of people. Not all
members of a ramified network are likely to have the same virus at a given time, since
not all members are in contact.
Of course, these are only ideal types: Reality is messier. The actual world is a
combination of both forms of networks (see also Kadushin 2001). People and their
computers often belong to densely knit networks while at the same time maintaining
ramified ties. We have termed this fusion of local and global connection, "glocalization".
In a glocal situation, biological, computer and marketing viruses use ramified networks to
introduce themselves into pockets of densely knit groups. Once viruses get inside a
12. 12
group, members will have much exposure to them and thus a greater likelihood of being
infected by them.
Thus the structure of contact allows a commonality in the life and death of viruses
that must be taken into account in understanding how they - and all sorts of networks -
operate.
13. 13
Table 1: Comparing Biological, Computer and Marketing Viruses
Type Biological Computer Marketing
Basics
Source Animals, Bio-Warfare Hackers, Cyber-Warfare Marketers, Activists
Nickname Bug, Germ Virus, Worm Buzz, In-Crowd
Life-Course Very Young (except AIDS) Corporate Execs.,Teens Teens
Media Physical Contact, Transport Computer Network, FD2FD* Internet, F2F*
*F2F = Face-to-Face FD2FD = Floppy Disk to Floppy Disk
Spread
Prob. of Infection Frequent Contact Frequent Contact Frequent Contact
Propogation Local, Airplanes Social Networks Social Networks
Transmission Knowns, Unknowns Lists, Address Book Known & Trusted
Diffusion No Social Link Weak & Strong Ties Strong Ties
Acceleration ç Sparsely-Knit, Loosely-Bounded Networks Accelerate All è
Speed Slow Hyper-Speed Slow to Medium
Spread of Disease Destruction of Fashions
Control
Recognition Symptoms, CDC Scripts, Template Match Trendies, Chain E-mail
Tracing Very Difficult Reverse Messaging Financial Reward
Mutations Natural Deliberately Created New Business Model
Prevention Condoms, Long Sleeves Anti-Virus, Firewall Voice-Mail
Eradication Drugs, Sanitation Anti-Virus Do Your Own Thing
Healing Medical Reformat Cut Up Charge Card
Consequences
Latent Resistant Viruses Hacker Prestige Reinforces Status Order
Economic Population Explosion Anti-Virus Industry Free Sites Disappear
Worst Case War, Starvation Societal Paralysis Distrust of Friends
Networking Physical Isolation Social Isolation Network Overload
15. 15
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Biography
Jeffrey Boase is a doctoral student at the Department of Sociology, University of
Toronto, and an active member in NetLab. He’s the co-author of an article analyzing
global use of Internet, and a principle designer of Survey 2001, a NSF funded global web
survey on the National Geographic Society’s website.
Barry Wellman gets biological viruses yearly, computer viruses weekly, and virally
markets his ideas daily. Professor Wellman directs NetLab at the University of Toronto’s
Department of Sociology, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, and Knowledge
Media Design Institute. He’s the (co)author of nearly 300 articles, and the (co) editor of
The Internet in Everyday Life, Networks in the Global Village, and Social Structures: A
Network Approach. Professor Wellman founded the International Network of Social
Network Analysis in 1976.