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A Mechanism Design Approach for Influence Maximization

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Game Theory for Networks (GameNets 2016)

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Abstract

With the proliferation of online social networks (OSNs), the characterization of diffusion processes and influence maximization over such processes is a problem of relevance and importance. Although several algorithmic frameworks for identifying influential nodes exist in literature, there is a paucity of literature in the setting of competitive influence. In this paper, we present a novel mechanism design approach to study the initial seeding problem where the agents, represented by vertices in the social network, are economically rational. The principals compete for influence in the network by setting price and incentives to illicit high degree initial subscribers, which in turn profit by infecting their neighbors. We restrict attention to equilibrium strategies and comparative statics for the agents.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Brendan Avent, Éva Czabarka, Stephen Fenner, and Alexander Matros for their helpful discussions and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA

    Michael Levet

  2. Department of Mathematics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA

    Michael Levet

  3. Discovery Analytics Center, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA

    Siddharth Krishnan

  4. Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA

    Siddharth Krishnan

Authors
  1. Michael Levet
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  2. Siddharth Krishnan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael Levet .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering, University of British Columbia, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada

    Julian Cheng

  2. University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

    Ekram Hossain

  3. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Haijun Zhang

  4. Wireless@VT, Bradley Department of ECE, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

    Walid Saad

  5. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA

    Mainak Chatterjee

Additional information

Supported by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) via Department of Interior National Business Center (DoI/NBC) contract number D12PC000337, The US Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints of this work for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright annotation thereon. Disclaimer: The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of IARPA, DoI/NBC, DTRA, or the US Government.

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© 2017 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

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Levet, M., Krishnan, S. (2017). A Mechanism Design Approach for Influence Maximization. In: Cheng, J., Hossain, E., Zhang, H., Saad, W., Chatterjee, M. (eds) Game Theory for Networks. GameNets 2016. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 174. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47509-7_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47509-7_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47508-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47509-7

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