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Dynamic and Static Influence Models on Starbucks Networks

Conference Paper · July 2009

DOI: 10.1109/ASONAM.2009.50 · Source: DBLP

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 2009 Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining
Dynamic and Static Influence Models on Starbucks Networks
Minkyoung Kim
Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science
Seoul National University
mkkim@bi.snu.ac.kr
Personalization Team, SK Telecom
bluet9@sktelecom.com
June-Sup Lee
Personalization Team, SK Telecom
june@sktelecom.com
Abstract
In this paper, we consider Starbucks stores in Korea,
which have been spread most rapidly in the world, as an
exemplary social network. We define two kinds of influence
models and analyze the diffusive power of each node in a
network. One is Dynamic Influence Model for time-varing
diffusion analysis and the other is Static Influence Model
for cumulative spreading power analysis. The physical fea-
tures of the most influential stores of the simulation results
show that our social influence models are convincing.
1 Introduction
It took only 5 years for Starbucks to open the 100th store
in Korea, which is the fastest growth of Starbucks in the
world [10]. The rapid expansion of Starbucks in Korea was
due to their careful decisions on where and when to open a
new store as well as their products and services.
In order to investigate the relation between Starbucks
stores in Korea, we construct a network from [2] by repre-
senting each store as a node and connecting nodes according
to the distance between them. Here, we define two kinds of
influence models and analyze the diffusive power of each
node in the network.
The first model is Dynamic Influence Model for time-
varying diffusion analysis. Over time, the structure of a
dynamic network changes, and so does the way of spread-
ing innovations in the network. This model estimates how
much each node contributes to increasing the scale of a dy-
namic network. With this model we can trace the history of
a social network formation and find which node was most
influential in terms of diffusion of innovation.
978-0-7695-3689-7/09 $25.00 © 2009 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ASONAM.2009.50
Authorized licensed use limited to: Seoul National University. Downloaded on March 17,2010 at 00:47:51 EDT from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Byoung-Tak Zhang
School of Computer Science and Engineering
Seoul National University
btzhang@bi.snu.ac.kr
The second one is Static Influence Model for cumulative
spreading power analysis. Unlike the first model, only the
current state of a network is taken into account. With this
model we can find which node is most influential now in a
given network.
From our simulation results on the Starbucks Korea net-
work, we figured out the most influential stores (dynami-
cally and statically) and evaluated them with their physical
features. We believe that these models can be applied for
effective diffusion targeting in various fields.
2 Related Works
Diffusion of Innovation is gradually processed through-
out the channels in social networks [12, 4, 3]. Rogers [11]
also mentioned that innovation is gradually spread through
the communication channels of social members who are the
parts of a social system. In other words, diffusion process
consists of mainly four elements:  1 Innovation,  2 Com-
munication Channels,  3 Time, 4 Social System[9].
In this paper, we apply them as followings. The set-
tlement of coffee culture in Korea ( 1 Innovation) is fun-
damentally made by word of mouth ( 2 Communication
Channel). The increased number of visitors of a Starbucks
store affects the opening date of a new shop nearby. Over
time (3 Time), the number of Starbucks stores increases,
and finally Starbucks store network system ( 4 Social Sys-
tem) is built. Furthermore, we think that the settlement of
coffee culture in Korea is deeply related to the diffusive
power of networks and we tried to analyze influence models
based on these four elements.
The topic of Diffusion of Innovation has been studied in
various fields such as social science, anthropology, mathe-
matics, computer science, and so on. Young[13] considered
344
each node in a social network as an agent and concluded • The influence score of store A decreases with the time
that each agent accepts innovations according to inherent difference of the opening dates from the neighboring
and external factors. Goldenberg[6] found that weak ties store B except the case that the years of the opening
between different kinds of groups played a more important dates are the same. This is because we assume that it
role of diffusion rather than strong ties do. In addition, prob- takes almost one year to open a new shop. Further-
abilistic models[5, 8, 7] have been studied for maximizing more, as the difference of the opening dates becomes
the diffusion coverage and targeting the optimal node as a larger, the influence power decreases non-linearly by a
seed node. Sigmoid function.
While those researches evaluate the influential power of
each node in a fixed size of network, we evaluate an extent 4.2 Dynamic Influence Model
of contribution to diffusion in dynamic and static networks.
In addition, we try to analyze Starbucks store chains as a Dynamic Influence Model estimates how much effects of
social network from a new point of view. a node spread over the network, i.e. how much each node
contributes to increasing the scale of the dynamic network.
3 Building a Starbucks Store Network Following equation describes the logic of Dynamic Influ-
ence Model.
The homepage of Starbucks Korea[2] offers informa-
tion about store names, store addresses and opening dates
of each shop. Also, from the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf
Korea homepage[1], we obtained the names and addresses
of stores for analyzing the relationships between two major
coffee brands in Korea.
In this research, we only deal with the 156 stores in
Seoul, because the number of stores in other areas is rel-
atively too small to construct a network.
Starbuck stores in Seoul are densely populated, espe-
cially in four districts: Gangnam-gu (43 stores, 28%),
Jung-gu (18 stores, 12%), Jongno-gu (16 stores, 10%) and
Seocho-gu (15 stores, 10%). And they can be divided
mainly into two clusters: (1) Jung-gu/Jongno-gu cluster
and (2) Gangnam-gu/Seocho-gu cluster. Actually, Jung-gu
is next to Jonno-gu, and also Gangnam-gu is adjacent to
Secho-gu. Therefore, in this research, we focus on the 92
Starbucks stores located in the four districts above.

Here, W(i, j) is the weight of the distance between store

4 Influence Models
4.1 Basic Assumptions
A store with large number of visitors is highly possible
to become saturated with exponentially increasing visitors.
To balance between supply and demand, it is possible (1) to
open a new shop near the store, or (2) for visitors to move to
neighbor stores looking for empty seats. This phenomenon
would repeatedly occur if demand exceeds supply. This is
the basic idea of a diffusion mechanism.
Followings are the basic assumptions for evaluating the
nodal diffusive power of the Starbucks Korea network.
• As the number of visitors of a store increases, addi-
tional neighbor stores are needed for the balance of
supply and demand.
i and j, fyear is the weight of the time difference between
the opening years of two stores, fstep is the damping factor
as the propagation step goes further (here, we set it to 0.5)
and e is the initial influence score (here, we set it to 1.0).
The effect e of the store i is propagated to the connected
store j, and the effect is propagated to the next connected
neighbor repeatedly. That is, the effect of a store is prop-
agated recursively, until there are no connected nodes any
more which opened later than the previous one; thus, it is a
directed graph. The effect is computed in a recursive way.
Fig 1 shows the process of the effect propagation. The
red arrows describe the first step of the effect propagation
from a seed node i and the blue arrows indicate the second
step of the effect propagation from the end node of the first
step. The link weight represents the distance between the
two stores (1: 200m, 2: 200m 400m, 3: 400m 600m), and
the node labels indicate ‘the name of stores (the opening

345

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 5 Simulation Results

Table 1 shows the top 10 stores of simulation results.

Each node name indicates ‘the name of stores (the opening
order)-the year of opening date’.

Figure 1. Effect propagation in the Starbucks

network

Table 1. Simulation results

order)-the year of opening date’.
As you can see, the results from the two models are
different; by Dynamic Influence Model, the most influen-
4.3 Static Influence Model tial store is 95th shop, named Gyunggi-Building, while by
Static Influence Model, the most influential store is 140th
Static Influence Model is to evaluate the nodal influence shop, named Sogong-dong. Fig 2 and 3 show the most in-
power at the current point, so the size of the network is not fluential store in Dynamic Influence Mode, the Gyunggi-
dynamic but fixed. While the previous model considers the Building store and its surroundings.
time factor for estimating an extent of contribution of each
node to expand the network size, this model excludes it.
But, the basic mechanism is almost same. It also recursively
continues the propagation process until the value of effect
converges into a constant value; thus, it is an undirected
graph. Following equation describes the logic mentioned
above.

Figure 2. Gyunggi-Building starbucks store

Figure 3. The surroundings of the Gyunggi-

Building Starbucks store

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 Even though the Gyunggi-Building store is a small store,
its surroundings are very advantageous for a floating popu-
lation to be gathered due to a lot of convenience facilities
such as a bank, a large-scale book store, subway station,
department store, office buildings, and so on. The office
workers with Starbucks Coffee in their hands are thought
to have played a role of advertising the Starbucks brand to
other people on the street.
Therefore, it is reasonable that the Gyunggi-Building
store is most influential in expanding the Starbucks Network
in Jung-gu/Jongno-gu districts. That is, Starbuck Network
Analysis can help to find out the powerful locations to earn
the word of mouth effect most efficiently.
In addition, due to the growth of other coffee brands, the
Starbuck Network is not independent any more. Instead,
it interacts with other coffee brands’ network such as The
Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Dunkin Donuts, and so on. This
phenomenon brings the changes of influential power as Fig
4 and Table 2.
Figure 4. Starbucks-CoffeeBean network
Table 2. Simulation results of a Starbucks-
CoffeeBean network (CB: CoffeeBean, ST:
Starbucks)
As Table 2 shows, even though Coffee Bean stores are
less than Starbucks stores, the ranks of Coffee Bean stores
are relatively high.
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6 Conclusion
In this paper, we built the Starbucks Korea network
and developed two influence models; Dynamic Influence
Model and Static Influence Model. From Dynamic Influ-
ence Model, the Gyunggi Building store was most influen-
tial in terms of how much effects a node has on succeeding
nodes. And from Static Influence Model, the Sogong-dong
store is most influential to other nodes at the moment.
In addition to the internal correlation of a social network,
the interaction between other networks is also important.
That is why we considered Coffee Bean stores in this paper.
There were research limitations in this paper. If we could
obtain additional information (the total number of visitors
and profit of each store, the type of visitors, floating popu-
lations, and etc.), we could develop more concrete models
and evaluate them more precisely.
References
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(www.coffeebeankorea.com).
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