Modeling and Predicting Popularity Dynamics of Microblogs using Self-Excited Hawkes Processes
Abstract
The ability to model and predict the popularity dynamics of individual user generated items on online media has important implications in a wide range of areas. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic model using a Self-Excited Hawkes Process(SEHP) to characterize the process through which individual microblogs gain their popularity. This model explicitly captures the triggering effect of each forwarding, distinguishing itself from the reinforced Poisson process based model where all previous forwardings are simply aggregated as a single triggering effect. We validate the proposed model by applying it on Sina Weibo, the most popular microblogging network in China. Experimental results demonstrate that the SEHP model consistently outperforms the model based on reinforced Poisson process.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1503.02754,
title = {Modeling and Predicting Popularity Dynamics of Microblogs using Self-Excited Hawkes Processes},
author = {Peng Bao and Hua-Wei Shen and Xiaolong Jin and Xue-Qi Cheng},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.02754},
year = {2015}
}