Observing the web by understanding the past: Archival internet research

Matthew S. Weber

doi:10.1145/2567948.2579213

Observing the web by understanding the past: Archival internet research

Matthew S. Weber

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities for using archival Internet data in order to observe a host of social science phenomena. Specifically, this paper introduces HistoryTracker, a new tool for accessing and extracting archived data from the Internet Archive, the largest repository of archived Web data in existence. The HistoryTracker tool serves to create a Web observatory that allows scholars to study the history of the Web. HistoryTracker takes advantages of Hadoop processing capacity, and allows researchers to extract large swaths of archived data into a link list format that can be easily transferred to a number of other analytical tools. A brief illustration of the use of HistoryTracker is presented demonstrating the use of the tool. Finally, a number of continuing research challenges are discussed, and future research opportunities are outlined.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	WWW 2014 Companion - Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages	1031-1036
Number of pages	6
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450327459
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/2567948.2579213
State	Published - Apr 7 2014
Externally published	Yes
Event	23rd International Conference on World Wide Web, WWW 2014 - Seoul, Korea, Republic of Duration: Apr 7 2014 → Apr 11 2014

Publication series

Name	WWW 2014 Companion - Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web

Other

Other	23rd International Conference on World Wide Web, WWW 2014
Country/Territory	Korea, Republic of
City	Seoul
Period	4/7/14 → 4/11/14

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The author acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (NSF Award 1244727), as well as the support of a number of collaborators including Kris Carpenter, David Lazer, Katherine Ognyanova, Vinay Goel, Luan Nguyen, Hai Nguyen and Allie Kosterich.

Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright 2014 by the International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee.

Keywords

Archived data
Data extraction
Network analysis
Occupy wall street
Social sciences
Web observatory

Publisher link

10.1145/2567948.2579213

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Cite this

Weber, M. S. (2014). Observing the web by understanding the past: Archival internet research. In WWW 2014 Companion - Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web (pp. 1031-1036). (WWW 2014 Companion - Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web). Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1145/2567948.2579213

Observing the web by understanding the past: Archival internet research. / Weber, Matthew S.
WWW 2014 Companion - Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2014. p. 1031-1036 (WWW 2014 Companion - Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Weber, MS 2014, Observing the web by understanding the past: Archival internet research. in WWW 2014 Companion - Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web. WWW 2014 Companion - Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, pp. 1031-1036, 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web, WWW 2014, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, 4/7/14. https://doi.org/10.1145/2567948.2579213

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abstract = "This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities for using archival Internet data in order to observe a host of social science phenomena. Specifically, this paper introduces HistoryTracker, a new tool for accessing and extracting archived data from the Internet Archive, the largest repository of archived Web data in existence. The HistoryTracker tool serves to create a Web observatory that allows scholars to study the history of the Web. HistoryTracker takes advantages of Hadoop processing capacity, and allows researchers to extract large swaths of archived data into a link list format that can be easily transferred to a number of other analytical tools. A brief illustration of the use of HistoryTracker is presented demonstrating the use of the tool. Finally, a number of continuing research challenges are discussed, and future research opportunities are outlined.",

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author = "Weber, {Matthew S.}",

note = "Funding Information: The author acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (NSF Award 1244727), as well as the support of a number of collaborators including Kris Carpenter, David Lazer, Katherine Ognyanova, Vinay Goel, Luan Nguyen, Hai Nguyen and Allie Kosterich. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} Copyright 2014 by the International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee.; 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web, WWW 2014 ; Conference date: 07-04-2014 Through 11-04-2014",

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AB - This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities for using archival Internet data in order to observe a host of social science phenomena. Specifically, this paper introduces HistoryTracker, a new tool for accessing and extracting archived data from the Internet Archive, the largest repository of archived Web data in existence. The HistoryTracker tool serves to create a Web observatory that allows scholars to study the history of the Web. HistoryTracker takes advantages of Hadoop processing capacity, and allows researchers to extract large swaths of archived data into a link list format that can be easily transferred to a number of other analytical tools. A brief illustration of the use of HistoryTracker is presented demonstrating the use of the tool. Finally, a number of continuing research challenges are discussed, and future research opportunities are outlined.

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KW - Network analysis

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KW - Social sciences

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Observing the web by understanding the past: Archival internet research

Abstract

Publication series

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Bibliographical note

Keywords

Publisher link

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