Abstract: We conducted a propagation analysis on an open social network, i.e., YouTube, by crawling one of its friendship networks and one of its subscribers (followers) networks. Our study is unique because it investigates the two main types of connections (i.e., friends and followers) within the same environment and interaction features. We observed that the effect on propagation of people who are not either in a friendship network or a subscription network is higher than that of friends or subscribers. Meanwhile, we found that even though the network of subscribers was denser than the network of friends, the magnitude of propagation in the subscription network was less than in the friendship net-work. We also noticed a low correlation between the popularity of content and its propagation in general, with a greater correlation in subscription networks than that in friendship networks.

Keywords: Information Propagation, Social Link Types, Social Networks, Viral Marketing, YouTube

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Recommended Citation: Afrasiabi Rad, A., Benyoucef, M. (2012). Measuring Propagation in Online Social Networks: The case of YouTube. Journal of Information Systems Applied Research, 5(1) pp 26-35. http://jisar.org/2012-5/ ISSN: 1946-1836. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of CONISAR 2011)