Group dynamics in discussing incidental topics over online social networks

The groups discussing incidental popular topics over online social networks have recently become a research focus. By analyzing some fundamental relationships in these groups, we find that the traditional models are not suitable for describing the group dynamics of incidental topics. In this article we analyze the dynamics of online groups discussing incidental popular topics and present a new model for predicting the dynamic sizes of incidental topic groups. We discover that the dynamic sizes of incidental topic groups follow a heavy-tailed distribution. Based on this finding, we develop an adaptive parametric method for predicting the dynamics of this type of group. The model presented in the article is validated using actual data from LiveJournal and Sohu blogs. The empirical results show that the model can effectively predict the dynamic characteristics of incidental topic groups over both short and long timescales, and outperforms the SIR model. We conclude by offering two strategies for promoting the group popularity of incidental topics.