March 13, 2009

Eytan Bakshy, the second-year SI PhD student talks about Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com) as a large-scale research in virtual community.

On Second Life, there is an emergence of the data that can be analyzed in several aspects, such as chat data, group membership, transaction records, usage patterns, and item ownership. With these kinds of data, a researcher could build a model on human social dynamics, i.e. structure and evolution of social networks, social influence – activities of a user which influence to another user – predicting popularity of content, and so on.

The results from visualization and qualitative analysis can be used for research in social networks, social interaction in online community, virtual economy, and provide tips and information for people in online sales and marketing.

An example of research on Second Life is a paper Eytan and his advisor, Prof. Lada Adamic, along with his colleague, have done on diffusion of user group on Second Life.