Competition between global and local online social networks

Kaj-Kolja Kleineberg,Marián Boguñá

doi:10.1038/srep25116

Abstract

The overwhelming success of online social networks, the key actors in the Web 2.0 cosmos, has reshaped human interactions globally. To help understand the fundamental mechanisms which determine the fate of online social networks at the system level, we describe the digital world as a complex ecosystem of interacting networks. In this paper, we study the impact of heterogeneity in network fitnesses on the competition between an international network, such as Facebook, and local services. The higher fitness of international networks is induced by their ability to attract users from all over the world, which can then establish social interactions without the limitations of local networks. In other words, inter-country social ties lead to increased fitness of the international network. To study the competition between an international network and local ones, we construct a 1:1000 scale model of the digital world, consisting of the 80 countries with the most Internet users. Under certain conditions, this leads to the extinction of local networks; whereas under different conditions, local networks can persist and even dominate completely. In particular, our model suggests that, with the parameters that best reproduce the empirical overtake of Facebook, this overtake could have not taken place with a significant probability.

Highlights

Empirical observations have shown that Facebook expanded massively in the middle of the first decade of this century, starting in the US, when local networks were the most popular services in most countries
To reveal the fundamental mechanisms that determine the fate of the digital world, it is necessary to understand the interaction of heterogeneous networks, each driven by intrinsic dynamics
Understanding the complex dynamics of the digital world constitutes an important challenge for interdisciplinary science

Summary

Introduction

Empirical observations have shown that Facebook expanded massively in the middle of the first decade of this century, starting in the US, when local networks were the most popular services in most countries. A few years later, Facebook had become the most popular network in most countries. Is the fate of the digital world to become dominated by a single “big brother” as it takes over all our digital interactions? We show that due to the nonlinear character of our model, the answer to both questions can be positive or negative depending on a range of parameters and, quite surprisingly, depending on chance. Our model, despite its simplicity and the limited number of parameters, is able to describe surprisingly well the complex behavior of globally interacting online social networks

Methods

Results

Conclusion