title: Local Variation of Hashtag Spike Trains and Popularity in Twitter.
abstract: We draw a parallel between hashtag time series and neuron spike trains. In each case, the process presents complex dynamic patterns including temporal correlations, burstiness, and all other types of nonstationarity. We propose the adoption of the so-called local variation in order to uncover salient dynamical properties, while properly detrending for the time-dependent features of a signal. The methodology is tested on both real and randomized hashtag spike trains, and identifies that popular hashtags present regular and so less bursty behavior, suggesting its potential use for predicting online popularity in social media.
authors.affiliation: CompleXity and Networks, naXys, Department of Mathematics, University of Namur, Namur, Belgium.
authors.forename: Ceyda
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sanlı
authors.affiliation: CompleXity and Networks, naXys, Department of Mathematics, University of Namur, Namur, Belgium.
authors.forename: Renaud
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lambiotte
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000379:methods; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D061108:Social Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013997:Time Factors