BUZZ NETWORK ON THE WEBLOG COMMUNITY

Shinya Takami, Katsumi Tanaka

Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University

Keywords: Buzz Marketing, Advertising Effectiveness, Weblog, Community.

Abstract: As we don't give priority to the mass media as trustful information, effective expansion of buzz (word-of-

mouth) will be expected as an important marketing approach. It seems that some buzzes on the Internet

spread by information on weblogs. Thus it is thought that a kind of buzz network is formed in weblog

communities. It is important theme in our research to analyze the structure of the buzz network on the

weblog communities and to find the hubs and the connectors on the network. We define a set of entries on a

weblog as a 'Buzz-Node' and each buzz-node has a specific characteristic. 'Buzz-Hubs' and 'Buzz-

Connectors' are the important weblogs that have the buzz-node connecting to many other buzz-nodes or that

connect two or more clusters. Now we are developing the analysis system of buzz network for weblog

communities called 'WeBz Analyzer' for finding the buzz-hubs and the buzz-connectors.

1 INTRODUCTION

We can easily touch vast and various information

today, not only through TV and newspaper but also

through the Internet. It is not easy for us to trust such

information now, because we are surrounded by too

much information. These days, we often check some

web sites and are sometimes influenced with their

information. The authors may not be famous even if

Yahoo! or Google lists such websites in the high

rank. We also refer to comments in the bulletin

board and the recommendations on Amazon.com.

It becomes more and more important in recent

years although word-of-mouth exists for a long time.

When some hot topics are expanded by word-of-

mouth, each of them is called 'Buzz'. Emanuel Rosen

says that three reasons enhance the importance of

buzz. First, we are exposed to information too much

to process. Second, we doubt the advertisements.

Third, we can share information easily with each

other on the Internet. It is popular for us to access

the buzzes especially on the Internet (Rosen, 2000).

2 BUZZ MARKETING

Our preferences are diversified and the scale of the

group sharing a specific interest tends to become

small. In addition, various advertisement-

distributing media increased enormously by the

appearance of the Internet. Thus the importance of

the media planning to reflect the intention of the

advertisers effectively has increased (Takami et al.,

2004). However, obtaining enough advertising

effectiveness becomes difficult if only using the

mass marketing in recent years.

As we don't give priority to the mass media as

trustful information, effective expansion of word-of-

mouth will be expected as an important marketing

approach. That is called 'Buzz Marketing'. In buzz

marketing, it is important to support the potential

opinion leaders who can expand the reputation of

some topics by word-of-mouth effectively (See

Figure 1). And finding them and estimating the

influence of advertising effectiveness by their

Figure 1: Marketing approaches.

136

Takami S. and Tanaka K. (2006).

BUZZ NETWORK ON THE WEBLOG COMMUNITY.

In Proceedings of WEBIST 2006 - Second International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Society, e-Business and

e-Government / e-Learning, pages 136-139

DOI: 10.5220/0001250301360139

 SciTePress

contribution are the most critical theme.

3 BUZZ NETWORK ON THE NET

3.1 Buzz Network

It is thought that people construct a kind of network

that consists of the people who are interested in a

specific topic and their friends. People who can

expand some topics by word-of-mouth are called

opinion leaders and they are regarded as the hubs of

the network (See Figure 2). In such a network, the

hubs can be evaluated on the following two aspects.

It is important for opinion leaders that they have

a lot of acquaintances. So the hubs are the nodes that

have many links with other nodes. People who are

similar to each other tend to form clusters. Then it

may not spread outside the cluster though the topic

spreads rapidly inside the cluster. The people who

have links with different clusters are also important

because some topics can spread by word-of-mouth

to the people who are interested in them via the

people who are not. The nodes that have a role of

connecting two or more different clusters are called

‘Connectors’.

When people who have some authority, we tend

to trust or refer their information. We often willing

to buy something which celebrities wear. Celebrities

can be hubs in the network and they are called social

hubs. Professionals who have the charisma in the

specific area look like celebrities. We also trust or

refer the information from the semi-professionals

even if they are not so famous but we can feel that

they are familiar. Some professionals also may be

hubs in the network and they are called expert hubs.

3.2 Buzz on the Internet

In recent years, we can talk about some topics and

share some reputations on the Internet. More and

more products and services become famous by

word-of-mouth on the Internet. Which means that

buzzes are born and expanded on the Internet. So the

Internet has the power to expand some topics by

word-of-mouth and buzz marketing is effective on

the Internet.

Advertising effectiveness by word-of-mouth has

not been focused on as a research area because it is

difficult to analyze the structure and estimate the

influence. The objective in many researches is to

find the hot topics on the Web and we can easily

find the buzzes on the Internet as the contribution of

such researches (Carter, 2005).

According to the report of Japan Advertisers

Association Web Advertising Bureau, over 70% of

writings are positive stance when a product is

referred in weblogs. They analyzed about one

million weblogs and found that there are a lot of

weblogs that have suitable contents for advertisers

but they have only a few readers. They say that it is

profitable mechanism to inform such detailed and

excellent weblogs for potential buyers (WAB,

2005).

Then we pay attention to weblogs as the potential

media that can generate buzzes and expand them by

word-of-mouth. A weblog consists of entries that are

linked with other weblogs or web sites. Most

weblogs have some categories and each category has

entries about a specific topic. The connections with

other weblogs are hyperlinks, trackbacks and

comments (See Figure 3).

4 BUZZ NETWORK AND

WEBLOG COMMUNITY

4.1 Weblog Community

Many opinions are exchanged through the weblogs,

and we are influenced with them. Generally, word-

of-mouth spreads by people. But it seems that word-

Figure 2: A structure of the Buzz Network.

Figure 3: A structure of the Weblog Network.

BUZZ NETWORK ON THE WEBLOG COMMUNITY

137

of-mouth on the Internet spreads by information on

weblogs. Thus some weblog groups can be regarded

as buzz networks.

There are some famous and popular weblogs

which authors are celebrities. They are linked with

enormous other weblogs and some topics on their

entries have strong influences on the Internet. It

seems that celebrity's weblogs can be regarded as

social hubs on buzz network. On the other hand,

there are various professional weblogs which

authors are specialists in each area. Such weblogs

also have some trustful influence on many people in

each specific area. They can be also regarded as

expert hubs on buzz network. Thus, the weblog has

the characteristic as the hubs on the buzz network

now.

Obtaining some advertising effectiveness by

supporting authors to take up a specific topic in their

weblogs is practiced at Gawker as a new advertising

strategy. Moreover, some researches consider the

relation between the author and the readers by

analyzing the comments on weblogs, and try to use

the contribution for marketing (Glance et al., 2005).

4.2 Buzz-Nodes and Buzz-Hubs

When buzz networks are formed in weblog

communities, it is necessary to define the node and

the link. Each entry of a weblog is used for criteria

in most researches on weblogs. But in our research,

we have to consider categories of weblogs because

entries in each category share a specific topic and

the characteristics of each category define the

clusters. Then we define a set of entries in a category

as a ‘Buzz-Node’.

A weblog has some connections with each other.

Hyperlinks are used to connect with other web sites

or entries on other weblogs. Trackbacks,

characteristic feature of weblog, show that an entry

is referred by an entry of another weblog. Several

entries have some comments from readers. Some of

the readers who write comments have their own

weblogs. So some comments on the weblogs can be

regarded as a link from the commentator's weblogs.

Thus we consider these three connections as links on

buzz network.

A weblog consists of some buzz-nodes and has

some links to other buzz-nodes. Each buzz-node has

a specific characteristic (keyword) that is regarded

as a characteristic of a cluster on the buzz network.

Then we can consider such network structure as the

buzz network. In a word, a weblog has some buzz-

nodes and each buzz-node has a specific keyword

and buzz-nodes are linked with each other (See

Figure 4).

The characteristics of the buzz-nodes are

evaluated by various methods. We can find the

important keywords on the entry by analyzing the

document. The name of category may be used for

the keyword. Several approaches to find such

keywords are proposed in many researches.

Some of the advertisements on the weblogs also

can be used for characterizing them because there

are advertisements automatically displayed suitable

for each web site's characteristics. Then keywords

can be extracted from such advertising contents or

meta data of them. It is important to refer the

advertisements actually displayed on weblogs

because advertisers need to consider the

compatibility with advertising topics on the weblogs.

By extracting the keywords from advertisements, we

can find some potential interests not only for the

genre of topics but also for a specific product or

service.

The hubs are important nodes on the buzz

network. It is thought that such nodes have not only

just many links but also many connections with

similar characteristic nodes. In the weblog

community, a ‘Buzz-Hub’ is not one of the buzz-

nodes but an important weblog. So a buzz-hub may

consist of some buzz-nodes. It is important for buzz-

hubs to have the buzz-node connecting to many

similar buzz-nodes. The buzz-hubs that have two or

more such buzz-nodes are more important.

Furthermore, the connectors are also important in

buzz marketing for expanding some topics by word-

of-mouth even if the nodes are not hubs. On the buzz

network, such nodes have a role of connecting two

or more different clusters. It looks difficult to find

such connectors on the buzz network by people. In

the weblog community, we consider that a ‘Buzz-

Figure 4: Buzz Network on the Weblog Community.

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138

Connector’ is the weblog that has two or more buzz-

nodes and each buzz-node belongs to a different

cluster. And the weblog is also buzz-connector that

has the buzz-node connecting two or more similar

clusters even if the characteristic of it is different

from such clusters.

4.3 WeBz Analyzer

Now we are developing the analysis system of buzz

network for weblog communities. We call buzz on

the Web ‘WeBz’ and we named the system ‘WeBz

Analyzer’. WeBz Analyzer can find the buzz-hubs

and buzz-connectors in weblog communities by

analyzing the network structure of weblogs.

The system calculates the number of links with

buzz-nodes that has a same or similar keyword, and

it finds the clusters and priority order of buzz-nodes

is shown. Similarly, it is done in the case of other

keywords. Next, the system analyzes the links with

the buzz-nodes that have different keywords. When

the buzz-node connects similar or different clusters,

Gaussian distribution defines the importance of the

connections for buzz-connectors. Then the system

calculates the total score in each buzz-node and it

shows the important buzz-hubs and buzz-connectors.

5 RELATED WORKS

With the spread of the weblog, hot topics in the

weblog community are often collected and analysed

in some researches (Bar-Ilan, 2004). Technorati

provides a real-time search engine that keeps track

of what is going on in the blogosphere. We can find

the ten words that got into the news most in 24 hours

on weblogs at kizasi.jp. In the meaning of finding

widespread buzzes, such services are interesting. But

it is important in our research to find the potential

web sites suitable for buzz marketing.

In the area of the next generation web search,

some researchers try to rank websites by regarding

two or more websites as a set (Yumoto and Tanaka,

2005). Yumoto and Tanaka propose the idea of

‘multiple viewpoint retrieval’ in web searches

because there are websites that have been described

from different viewpoints for a specific topic. We

also plan to use a feature-vector based approach for

characterising buzz-nodes.

6 CONCLUSION

Many researches try to find the hot topics on the

Web and we can easily find some buzzes on the

Internet as the contribution of them. But it is still

difficult to analyze how buzzes are expanded and to

estimate the advertising influences by word-of-

mouth.

With the spread of Weblog, it seems that buzzes

on the Internet spreads by the information on

weblogs. Then we consider that weblog

communities have a kind of buzz network. In our

research, it is critical to find the buzz-hubs and buzz-

connectors because those are the potential weblogs

with the possibility of expanding buzzes.

We introduced the analysis system of buzz

network for weblog communities called 'WeBz

Analyzer'. Although we are still developing it, we

hope that the system can simulate the advertising

effectiveness by word-of-mouth on the Internet.

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