New links attach disproportionately to already well-connected nodes, producing heavy-tailed degree distributions.
Barabási and Albert's 1999 model. The rich-get-richer mechanism produces the heavy tails seen in citations, web links, wealth and city sizes without anyone designing the outcome.
In practice
- A blog with 400 subscribers grows slowly; the same blog after one large share grows on the strength of having grown.
- A conference speaker with a reputation is invited because they are invited elsewhere, and the first invitation was closer to chance than anyone admits.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Networks & Collective Behavior
- Essay
- How connections shape what crowds do