Empirical Comparison of Information Spreading Algorithms in the Presence of 1-Whiskers

Several information spreading algorithms for social networks have been proposed by researchers during the past few years. However, the main challenge is to find out the best algorithm with the lowest running time for a given communication graph. In this paper, we address the problem of information spreading in the context of social networks. We compare the running times of three well known information spreading algorithms in the field by using real data collected from the Face book website. We prove the importance of 1-whisker communities for the speed of information spreading algorithms in social networks by comparing the performance of different spreading algorithms with and without 1-whiskers. Our results are important since they highlight the effect of 1-whiskers as the main communication bottlenecks for information spreading and the need for development of more efficient algorithms in this field.