Social network based microblog user behavior analysis

The influence of microblog on information transmission is becoming more and more obvious. By characterizing the behavior of following and being followed as out-degree and in-degree respectively, a microblog social network was built in this paper. It was found to have short diameter of connected graph, short average path length and high average clustering coefficient. The distributions of out-degree, in-degree and total number of microblogs posted present power-law characters. The exponent of total number distribution of microblogs is negatively correlated with the degree of each user. With the increase of degree, the exponent decreases much slower. Based on empirical analysis, we proposed a social network based human dynamics model in this paper, and pointed out that inducing drive and spontaneous drive lead to the behavior of posting microblogs. The simulation results of our model match well with practical situation. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.