Abstract
Mobile social networking services provide efficient and easy communication, enabling users to create, retrieve and disseminate messages on the go while making their messages widely available. Despite growing evidence suggesting that geographic location and distance restrict online communication and interaction patterns, the role of geographic factors on the information dissemination in mobile social networks is often overlooked. We conducted a large-scale analysis on how the geographic factors influence the information dissemination in mobile social networks, by using two different datasets which recorded billions of users’ viewing and forwarding activities corresponding as well as the temporal and geographic information. The effects of two geographic factors, namely location and distance, on the probability and velocity of information dissemination were explored by measuring the geographic distribution of the four key indicators, namely viewing probability, forwarding probability, response time, and decision-making time. The results verify the distance decay effect of the information dissemination probability, and demonstrate that the velocity of information dissemination is not dependent on geographic distance. Furthermore, both the probability and velocity of information dissemination show heterogeneity and diversity of geographic location. Our research makes up for the gap in the relationship between geographic factors and information dissemination in mobile social networks. Our findings can provide suggestions for mobile social services, public opinion regulation and precision marketing.
Highlights
Mobile social networking is social networking where individuals communicate with each other through a mobile phone and/or tablet, and it extends from web-based social networks and location-based services [1]
The user does not pay attention to the location of the information source when viewing information, the geographic distance limits its possible social connections, limiting the access to information that they may view. It further proves the role of geographic distance in information dissemination in mobile social networks: it constrains the access to information through social relationships; the effect disappears once users are able to obtain and view the information in mobile social networks
The effect of geographic distance on the viewing probability and the forwarding probability is similar of the two datasets, indicating that distance decay effect of the information dissemination probability is relatively stable in the WeChat social network
Summary
Mobile social networking is social networking where individuals communicate with each other through a mobile phone and/or tablet, and it extends from web-based social networks and location-based services [1]. With mobile social networking applications, people can share their feelings, emotions, opinions or attitudes about what they have seen and heard in the physical world, and about popular events or viral advertisements in virtual networks, at any time and place. Their friends from all over the world can view, comment and forward the received information at any time, facilitating the spread of the information across time and space [2,3,4,5,6,7]. We aim to investigate the impact of geographic factors on the information dissemination in mobile social networks
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