The blogosphere as a complex network: an empirical laboratory

Blognation (http://www.blognation.it) is an aggregator of the Italian blogosphere. 2.500 blogs are aggregated, each blog produces about 10 posts a day, and a semantic engine automatically extracts tags (concepts) for each post. The database of the aggregator contains information about the relationships between blog and blog, and between post and concepts. Timestamp is traced. The database (MySQl) of the blog aggregator may be used as a laboratory where empirically measure network properties, calculate hubs and authorities, and design algorithms for post and blog ranking, for determining trends in time, etc.

Group members:

• Massimiliano Spaziani

• Kang Zhao

Proposed working title: "Blogger-topic ranking metrics. A network analysis of the Italian blogosphere in 2010"

Post to post network (Kang Zhao)

• Observed several different component in the network
• The cumulative distribution of the component size is a power law. See the log-log plot

TO DO

• Network and component properties: degree distribution, assortativity, homophily, clustering, motifs, modularity, distances, centrality measures
• Network dynamics, concurrency
• Tags (contents, topics)
  • Trends, blogger authority
  • Different behaviour of professional blogger and non-professional blogger
  • Bigger component are associated to specific content categories or topics?