Correlating Social Interconnections of Users with Spatio-Temporal Check-Ins Behavior

Abstract

Acquiring the knowledge about the relationship among friendship network properties and check-in behavior of users (connected in the friendship network) has several benefits such as planning advertising strategies and recommending the friends or places. This paper aims to find the impact of structural patterns hidden in the nodes of a friendship network and external environment changes in the check-in patterns of the users. First, we categorize each spatial check-in event based on its cause into either self reinforcing behavior or social influence or external effect. Then, we explore how network and spatial properties and external factors affect the number of check-ins and influences. Using check-ins data from four major cities/states and its users' friendship graph, we show how network and spatial properties like centrality, network neighborhood overlap, spatial check-ins overlap, strong ties effects the check-ins and influential behavior of individuals.