Summary & Description
Our third lab will let you find social epidemics on Google trends.
Social epidemics arising from cascading influence of a socially linked population are a fundamental feature of open collaboration. While epidemic cascades can be found in open collaboration platforms (e.g. github, wiki), they are much easier to search and find on Google trends. The goal is to give you an intuitive sense of what social epidemics are in reality. You will then be able to detect them heuristically.
a. Think
Think of an event which you believe has (not) triggered a social epidemic
b. Search
Search for it on Google Trends
Bare response (no triggering => peak followed by fast decay)
Example : Jackie Chan
Exogenous critical (triggering from an initial external shock => peak followed by a slow decay)
Example : Harry Potter May2011-Jan2013
Endogenous critical (triggering by word of mouths => "tent-like" shape)
Example : Harry Potter Apr2007-Oct2007
If you have no idea, just browse Google Trends TopCharts (Actors typically work well)
Refine the timeline in order to get an appearance like the dynamics showed during the class.
c. Report & Classify
Paste the link on the following interactive pad in the right category : Public Pad
Try to find and report at least two of each category
d. To go Further
Hunting social triggering and generations of contributors on github. Find and report relevant dynamics on Github with successive generations of developers :
Example : libgit2
If you have no idea of a project with enough activity , just browse Explore GitHub