Information Propagation on the Web: Data Extraction, Modeling and Simulation

This paper proposes a model of information propagation mechanisms on the Web, describing all steps of its design and use in simulation. First the characteristics of a real network are studied, in particular in terms of citation policies: from a network extracted from the Web by a crawling tool, distinct publishing behaviours are identified and characterised. The Zero Crossing model for information diffusion is then extended to increase its expressive power and allow it to reproduce this variety of behaviours. Experimental results based on a simulation validate the proposed extension.