The overwhelming success of Web 2.0, within which online social networks are key actors, has induced a paradigm shift in the nature of human interactions. The user-driven character of Web 2.0 services has allowed researchers to quantify large-scale social patterns for the first time. However, the mechanisms that determine the fate of networks at the system level are still poorly understood. For instance, the simultaneous existence of multiple digital services naturally raises questions concerning which conditions these services can coexist under. Analogously to the case of population dynamics, the digital world forms a complex ecosystem of interacting networks. The fitness of each network depends on its capacity to attract and maintain users’ attention, which constitutes a limited resource. In this paper, we introduce an ecological theory of the digital world which exhibits stable coexistence of several networks as well as the dominance of an individual one, in contrast to the competitive exclusion principle. Interestingly, our theory also predicts that the most probable outcome is the coexistence of a moderate number of services, in agreement with empirical observations.
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机译：Web 2.0取得了压倒性的成功，在线社交网络是其中的主要参与者，它已经引发了人类交互性质的范式转变。 Web 2.0服务的用户驱动特性使研究人员首次能够量化大规模的社交模式。但是，在系统级别确定网络命运的机制仍然知之甚少。例如，多个数字服务的同时存在自然会引发有关这些服务可以在哪种条件下共存的问题。与人口动态类似，数字世界形成了相互作用网络的复杂生态系统。每个网络的适用性取决于其吸引和保持用户注意力的能力，这构成了有限的资源。在本文中，我们介绍了一种数字世界的生态理论，与竞争排斥原理相反，该理论展现了多个网络的稳定共存以及单个网络的主导地位。有趣的是，我们的理论还预测，最可能的结果是适度数量的服务并存，与经验观察一致。
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