Game-theoretic approach for user migration in Diaspora

Abstract

Diaspora is a decentralized online social networking platform where user profiles are hosted in multiple Diaspora nodes (pods) and the social connections can exist across different pods. User profile migration is a promising feature that would enable users to seamlessly migrate their profile data between different pods. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no research done on how this data portability may affect the user distribution and the performance of the pods. In this paper, our goal is to design an approach that facilitates the users to choose appropriate pods that would ensure better service quality. We propose a decentralized game-theoretic approach that is based on user's local neighborhood information and the quality of the pods. We have analytically determined, and experimentally substantiated, that through the proposed profile migration approach the users of Diaspora reach a stable and balanced distribution that improves their overall experience in respective pods.