Title
Bursty egocentric network evolution in Skype
Abstract
Abstract In this study we analyze the dynamics of the contact list evolution of millions of users of the Skype communication network. We find that egocentric networks evolve heterogeneously in time as events of edge additions and deletions of individuals are grouped in long bursty clusters, which are separated by long inactive periods. We classify users by their link creation dynamics and show that bursty peaks of contact additions are likely to appear shortly after user account creation. We also study possible relations between bursty contact addition activity and other user-initiated actions like free and paid service adoption events. We show that bursts of contact additions are associated with increases in activity and adoption—an observation that can inform the design of targeted marketing tactics.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1007/s13278-013-0123-y
Social Netw. Analys. Mining
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Data mining, Online social networks, Human dynamics, Social network evolution
Journal
abs/1206.0883
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
4
1869-5469
6
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.50
18
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Riivo Kikas1514.19
Marlon Dumas2252.54
Márton Karsai342230.42