posting activity tapers off almost two-thirds of a day later. In Figure 2.3 we see how the
content of discussion changes after a news release—the relative proportions of messages
are divided into opinions, facts, and questions. Opinions form the bulk of the discussion.
Whereas the text contains some facts at the outset, the factual content of discussion
tapers off sharply after the first hour.
Poster behavior and statistics are also informative. We found that the frequency of
posting by users was power-law-distributed (see the histogram in Figure 2.4). The
weekly pattern of postings is shown in Figure 2.5. We see that there is more posting
48 Quantifying news: Alternative metrics
Figure 2.3.Subjective evaluation of content of post-news release postings on message boards. The
content is divided into opinions, facts, and questions (source: Das, Martinez-Jerez, and Tufano,
2005).
Figure 2.4.Frequency of posting by message board participants.