Skip to main content

Measurement Methods of User Behavior in Online Social Networks

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Computational Social Networks

Abstract

The measurements of user behavior in online social networks have recently received special attention from the social, psychological, and networking research communities. Applying different measurement techniques allows to measure diverse facets of human activities. To overview the existing measurement methods and to motivate the development of novel measurement schemes, we review the most prevalent measurement techniques that are used in case of online social networks. Both passive and active methods are considered; the measurement frameworks are compared based on several properties including the details of the datasets and the resource consumption of the methods. In addition, state-of-the-art applications of the measurement ideas are given for illustration purposes.

This work was done while László Gyarmati was a graduate student at Telecommunications and Media Informatics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Adonomics: http://www.adonomics.com (2007)

  2. Bebo: http://www.bebo.com (2005)

  3. Benevenuto, F., Rodrigues, T., Cha, M., Almeida, V.: Characterizing user behavior in online social networks. In: ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, pp. 49–62. ACM, New York (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  4. BrightKite: http://www.brightkite.com (2007)

  5. Cha, M., Mislove, A., Adams, B., Gummadi, K.P.: Characterizing social cascades in Flickr. In: Proceedings of the First Workshop on Online Social Networks – WOSP ’08, pp. 13–18. ACM, New York (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Chun, H., Kwak, H., Eom, Y.-H., Ahn, Y.-Y., Moon, S., Jeong, H.: Comparison of online social relations in terms of volume vs. interaction : a case study of Cyworld. In: 8th ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement, pp. 57–69. ACM, New York (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Cyworld: http://www.cyworld.com (1999)

  8. Digg: http://www.digg.com (2004)

  9. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com (2004)

  10. Flickr: http://www.flickr.com (2004)

  11. FourSquare: http://www.foursquare.com (2009)

  12. FriendFeed: http://www.friendfeed.com (2007)

  13. Galuba, W., Aberer, K., Chakraborty, D., Despotovic, Z., Kellerer, W.: Outtweeting the twitterers-predicting information cascades in microblogs. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Online Social Networks, Paris, pp. 1–9. USENIX Association, Boston, MA (USA) (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Garg, S., Gupta, T., Carlsson, N., Mahanti, A.: Evolution of an online social aggregation network : an empirical study. In: Proceedings of the 9th ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement – IMC ’09, pp. 315–321. ACM, New York, (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Ghosh, S., Korlam, G., Ganguly, N.: The effects of restrictions on number of connections in OSNs: a case-study on twitter. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Online Social Networks, Paris, pp. 1–9. USENIX Association, Boston, MA (USA) (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Gjoka, M., Sirivianos, M., Markopoulou, A., Yang, X.: Poking facebook: characterization of OSN applications. In: Proceedings of the First Workshop on Online Social Networks, pp. 31–36. ACM, New York (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Golder, S.A., Wilkinson, D.M., Huberman, B.A.: Rhythms of social interaction: messaging within a massive online network. In: Steinfield, C., Pentland, B.T., Ackerman, M., Contractor, N. (eds.) Communities and Technologies, pp. 41–66. Springer, London (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. Gyarmati, L., Trinh, T.A.: Characterizing User Groups in Online Social Networks. Volume 5733 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 59–68. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Gyarmati, L., Trinh, T.A.: Measuring user behavior in online social networks. IEEE Netw. 24(5), 26–31 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Hi5: http://www.hi5.com (2003)

  21. Jiang, J., Wilson, C., Wang, X., Huang, P., Sha, W., Dai, Y., Zhao, B.Y.: Understanding latent interactions in online social networks. In: ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, pp. 369–382. ACM, New York (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Krishnamurthy, B., Gill, P., Arlitt, M.: A few chirps about twitter. In: Proceedings of the First Workshop on Online Social Networks, pp. 19–24. ACM, New York (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Leskovec, J., Horvitz, E.: Planetary-scale views on a large instant-messaging network. In: Proceeding of the 17th International Conference on World Wide Web – WWW ’08, pp. 915–924. ACM, New York (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  24. LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com (2003)

  25. LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com (1999)

  26. Microsoft Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com (2001)

  27. Mislove, A., Marcon, M., Gummadi, K.P., Druschel, P., Bhattacharjee, B.: Measurement and analysis of online social networks. In: Proceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement – IMC ’07, p. 29. ACM, New York (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Mislove, A., Koppula, H.S., Gummadi, K.P., Druschel, P., Bhattacharjee, B.: Growth of the Flickr social network. In: Proceedings of the First Workshop on Online Social Networks, pp. 25–30. ACM, New York (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  29. MySpace: http://www.myspace.com (2003)

  30. Nazir, A., Raza, S., Chuah, C.-N.: Unveiling facebook: a measurement study of social network based applications. In: ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, pp. 43–56. ACM, New York (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Nazir, A., Raza, S., Gupta, D., Chuah, C.-N., Krishnamurthy, B.: Network level footprints of facebook applications. In: Proceedings of the 9th ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement – IMC ’09, pp. 63–75. ACM, New York (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Netlog: http://www.netlog.com (2003)

  33. Orkut: http://www.orkut.com (2004)

  34. PlanetLab: http://www.planet-lab.org (2002)

  35. Renren: http://www.renren.com (2005)

  36. Scellato, S., Mascolo, C., Musolesi, M., Latora, V.: Distance matters: geo-social metrics for online social networks. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop Online Social Networks, Paris, pp. 1–9. USENIX Association, Boston, MA (USA) (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Schneider, F., Feldmann, A., Krishnamurthy, B., Willinger, W.: Understanding online social network usage from a network perspective. In: Proceedings of the 9th ACM SIGCOMM conference on Internet Measurement – IMC ’09, pp. 35–48. ACM, New York (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Song, H.H., Cho, T.W., Dave, V., Zhang, Y., Qiu, L.: Scalable proximity estimation and link prediction in online social networks. In: Proceedings of the 9th ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Internet Measurement – IMC ’09, pp. 322–335. ACM, New York (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  39. StudiVZ: http://www.studivz.net (2005)

  40. Tagged: http://www.tagged.com (2004)

  41. Torkjazi, M., Rejaie, R., Willinger, W.: Hot today , gone tomorrow : on the migration of MySpace users. In: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Workshop on Online Social Networks, pp. 43–48. ACM, New York (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Twitter: http://www.twitter.com (2006)

  43. Valafar, M., Rejaie, R., Willinger, W.: Beyond friendship graphs: a study of user interactions in Flickr. In: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Workshop on Online Social Networks, pp. 25–30. ACM, New York (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  44. Viswanath, B., Mislove, A., Cha, M., Gummadi, K.P.: On the evolution of user interaction in facebook. In: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Workshop on Online Social Networks, pp. 37–42. ACM, New York (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  45. Wilson, C., Boe, B., Sala, A., Puttaswamy, K.P.N., Zhao, B.Y.: User interactions in social networks and their implications. In: Proceedings of the Fourth ACM European Conference on Computer Systems – EuroSys ’09, pp. 205–218. ACM, New York (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  46. YouTube: http://www.youtube.com (2005)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to László Gyarmati .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer-Verlag London

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Gyarmati, L., Trinh, T.A. (2012). Measurement Methods of User Behavior in Online Social Networks. In: Abraham, A. (eds) Computational Social Networks. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4051-1_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4051-1_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-4050-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-4051-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics