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Home / Proceedings / Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media

Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets

February 1, 2023

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Authors

Tao Sun,Ming Zhang,Qiaozhu Mei

Peking University,Peking University,University of Michigan


DOI:

10.1609/icwsm.v7i1.14435


Abstract:

Serendipity is a beneficial discovery that happens in an unexpected way. It has been found spectacularly valuable in various contexts, including scientific discoveries, acquisition of business, and recommender systems. Although never formally proved with large-scale behavioral analysis, it is believed by scientists and practitioners that serendipity is an important factor of positive user experience and increased user engagement. In this paper, we take the initiative to study the ubiquitous occurrence of serendipitious information diffusion and its effect in the context of microblogging communities. We refer to serendipity as unexpected relevance, then propose a principled statistical method to test the unexpectedness and the relevance of information received by a microblogging user, which identifies a serendipitous diffusion of information to the user. Our findings based on large-scale behavioral analysis reveal that there is a surprisingly strong presence of serendipitous information diffusion in retweeting, which accounts for more than 25% of retweets in both Twitter and Weibo. Upon the identification of serendipity, we are able to conduct observational analysis that reveals the benefit of serendipity to microblogging users. Results show that both the discovery and provision of serendipity increase the level of user activities and social interactions, while the provision of serendipitous information also increases the influence of Twitter users.

Topics: ICWSM

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HOW TO CITE:

Tao Sun,Ming Zhang,Qiaozhu Mei Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (2013) 592-601.

Tao Sun,Ming Zhang,Qiaozhu Mei Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets ICWSM 2013, 592-601.

Tao Sun,Ming Zhang,Qiaozhu Mei (2013). Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 592-601.

Tao Sun,Ming Zhang,Qiaozhu Mei. Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 2013 p.592-601.

Tao Sun,Ming Zhang,Qiaozhu Mei. 2013. Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets. "Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media". 592-601.

Tao Sun,Ming Zhang,Qiaozhu Mei. (2013) "Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets", Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, p.592-601

Tao Sun,Ming Zhang,Qiaozhu Mei, "Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets", ICWSM, p.592-601, 2013.

Tao Sun,Ming Zhang,Qiaozhu Mei. "Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets". Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 2013, p.592-601.

Tao Sun,Ming Zhang,Qiaozhu Mei. "Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets". Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, (2013): 592-601.

Tao Sun,Ming Zhang,Qiaozhu Mei. Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets. ICWSM[Internet]. 2013[cited 2023]; 592-601.


ISSN: 2334-0770


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