Bernardo A. Huberman HP Labs at Supernova 2008

1. S ocial Attention
B ernardo A. Huberman
HP Labs
© 2007 Hewlett-P ackard Development C ompany, L.P .
The information contained herein is s ubject to change without notice

2. in the age of the web
and with the ubiquity of social networks ,
the scarce - and valuable – res ource is attention
attention not as an individual ps ychological mechanism, but as a social
phenomenon
meas ured by the intens ity of signals that relate to a particular
idea, theory, product, res earch program, movie, book, etc.
Q ues tions :
how do s ocial networks mediate attention?
how does attention relate to the amount and intens ity of information
available?
what is the role that novelty and popularity play in eliciting attention?
2

3. attention – the network dimension
a study of15 million recommendations from amazon.com
prediction: propagation short on average, but every once in a while it goes along way
3