The second reading for the week was again by Barabasi, on the “rich get richer” rule. To be perfectly honest, this week’s readings have (so far) failed to interest me. They seem to just drizzle on about nodes and hubs and linking and wind up getting a bit complicated.

Barabasi compares networks such as the Web to Hollywood to demonstrate his points. This is what I got from the reading:

– If networks as varied as the Web and Hollywood both display a power-law degree distribution then there must be some universal law responsible for it that could apply to ALL networks

– The rich get richer phenomenon could explain the power laws

– EVERYONE agrees that the Web is growing

– Despite the enormity and complexity of the web it continues to grow incrementally node by node

– If we consider Hollywood with the Web both start as small networks and then expand as time goes on.

– Most real networks share an essential feature: GROWTH

– We link to things based on our knowledge and experience of the world
– When deciding where to link on the web we follow preferential attachment: So while our individual choices are unpredictable as a group we follow strict patterns.

Hopefully next week’s readings are a little more interesting…