Engagement and Reaction in the Blogosphere

The changing trends in the use of web technology that aims to enhance interconnectivity, self-expression and information sharing on the web has led to the development of online, many-to-many communication services such as blogs. Information elements in blogs can be interlinked. The succession of linking behavior determines the way in which information propagates among blogs, forming cascades. Analyzing cascades can be useful in various domains, such as providing insight of public opinion and developing better cascade models. In this paper, we present trends on the degree of engagement and reaction of bloggers in stories that become available in blogs under various parameters and constraints. We analyze cascades that are attributed to different population groups constrained by factors of gender, age, and continent, and how cascades differentiate depending on their subject. Our analysis is performed on one of the largest available datasets and reveals large variations in the properties of cascades.