dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaFifteen Minutes of Fame: The Dynamics of Information Access on the Web
| Authors | Z. Dezso, E. Almaas, A. Lukacs, B. Racz, I. Szakadat, A. -L. Barabasi |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0505087 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0505087 |
Abstract
While current studies on complex networks focus on systems that change relatively slowly in time, the structure of the most visited regions of the Web is altered at the timescale from hours to days. Here we investigate the dynamics of visitation of a major news portal, representing the prototype for such a rapidly evolving network. The nodes of the network can be classified into stable nodes, that form the time independent skeleton of the portal, and news documents. The visitation of the two node classes are markedly different, the skeleton acquiring visits at a constant rate, while a news document's visitation peaking after a few hours. We find that the visitation pattern of a news document decays as a power law, in contrast with the exponential prediction provided by simple models of site visitation. This is rooted in the inhomogeneous nature of the browsing pattern characterizing individual users: the time interval between consecutive visits by the same user to the site follows a power law distribution, in contrast with the exponential expected for Poisson processes. We show that the exponent characterizing the individual user's browsing patterns determines the power-law decay in a document's visitation. Finally, our results document the fleeting quality of news and events: while fifteen minutes of fame is still an exaggeration in the online media, we find that access to most news items significantly decays after 36 hours of posting.
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"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:00:57.226000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:00:57.226000Z",
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"abstract": "While current studies on complex networks focus on systems that change\nrelatively slowly in time, the structure of the most visited regions of the Web\nis altered at the timescale from hours to days. Here we investigate the\ndynamics of visitation of a major news portal, representing the prototype for\nsuch a rapidly evolving network. The nodes of the network can be classified\ninto stable nodes, that form the time independent skeleton of the portal, and\nnews documents. The visitation of the two node classes are markedly different,\nthe skeleton acquiring visits at a constant rate, while a news document\u0027s\nvisitation peaking after a few hours. We find that the visitation pattern of a\nnews document decays as a power law, in contrast with the exponential\nprediction provided by simple models of site visitation. This is rooted in the\ninhomogeneous nature of the browsing pattern characterizing individual users:\nthe time interval between consecutive visits by the same user to the site\nfollows a power law distribution, in contrast with the exponential expected for\nPoisson processes. We show that the exponent characterizing the individual\nuser\u0027s browsing patterns determines the power-law decay in a document\u0027s\nvisitation. Finally, our results document the fleeting quality of news and\nevents: while fifteen minutes of fame is still an exaggeration in the online\nmedia, we find that access to most news items significantly decays after 36\nhours of posting.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0505087",
"authors": [
"Z. Dezso",
"E. Almaas",
"A. Lukacs",
"B. Racz",
"I. Szakadat",
"A. -L. Barabasi"
],
"categories": [
"physics.soc-ph",
"cond-mat.dis-nn"
],
"title": "Fifteen Minutes of Fame: The Dynamics of Information Access on the Web",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0505087"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
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