How did Facebook grow?

October 3, 2019

How did Facebook grow? Did Twitter, LinkedIn, WeChat and others grow in the same way? A Network-Based Universal Growth Law

Sponsored by the Circuit an System Society under its Distinguished Lecturer Program

Prof. C K Michael TSE
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
CASS Distinguish Lecturer

Abstract:
The growth of the user population of a newly launched product or service is often considered as being controlled by multiple factors like deployment of appropriate business strategy, quality of the product, market readiness, and luck! Recent research in network science has provided convenient access to the construction of models that can describe collective human behaviour. Here, we discuss a model, based on construction of a networked community and two fundamental behaviour of decision making, that can universally describe the growth of the user population of any newly launched product or service. This model leads to a universal growth equation that describes dynamically the size of the user population in terms of the prospective market size and the extents of peer influence and personal choice. We analyse 22 sets of real-world historical growth data of a variety of products and services, and show that they all follow the universal growth equation. The numerical procedure for finding the model parameters allows the market size, and the relative effectiveness of customer service and promotional efforts to be estimated from the available historical growth data. This model can be extended to a variety of practical growth applications. This talk will highlight the role of data, combined with the use of appropriate theory, in many areas of applied research.

Bio:
C. K. Michael Tse obtained the BEng(Hons) and PhD degrees from the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is a Chair Professor of Electronic Engineering with Hong Kong Polytechnic University where he served as Head of Electronic and Information Engineering from 2005 to 2012. His research interests include power electronics, nonlinear systems, and network applications. In 2005 he was elected IEEE Fellow, and in 2009 he was appointed Chang Jiang Scholars Chair Professor by the Chinese Ministry of Education. Prof. Tse received numerous research and invention prizes including IEEE Transactions Best Paper Prizes, Gold Medals at Geneva International Invention Exhibitions and Grand Prize at Silicon Valley International Inventors Festival. He was conferred honorary professorships by a few Australian and Chinese universities and was awarded distinguished fellowships by a few Australian and Canadian universities, including the Professor-at-Large Fellow by University of Western Australia and Distinguished International Research Fellow by the University of Calgary. He was appointed IEEE Distinguished Lecturer three times. He serves/has served as Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II, IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine, as Editor for a few other journals, and as member of a few IEEE institute-level committees including Fellows Selection Committee. In Hong Kong, he serves/has served on panels of Hong Kong Innovation Technology Fund, Research Grant Council and ITC-ESS and on Quality Education Fund Committee of HKSAR Government, and is a board member of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta.

Politecnico di Torino, Maxwell Room – 11:00

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