Modeling Blogosphere

Abstract

The advent of participatory Web applications (or Web 2.0 [1]) has created online media that has turned the former mass information consumers to the present information producers [2]. Examples include blogs, wikis, social annotation and tagging, media sharing, and various other such services. A blog site or simply blog (short for web log) is a collection of entries by individuals displayed in reverse chronological order. These entries, known as the blog posts, can typically combine text, images, and links to other blogs, blog posts, and/or to Web pages. Blogging is becoming a popular means for mass Web users to express, communicate, share, collaborate, debate, and reflect. Blogosphere is a virtual universe that contains all blogs. Blogosphere also represents the network of the blogs where each node could be either a blog or a blog post and the edges depict a hyperlink between two nodes in this blog network. Bloggers, the blog writers, loosely form their special interest communities where they share thoughts, express opinions, debate ideas, and offer suggestions interactively. Blogosphere provides a conducive platform to build the virtual communities of special interests. It reshapes business models [3], assists viral marketing [4], provides trend analysis and sales prediction [5, 6], aids counter-terrorism efforts [7], and acts as grassroot information sources [8].