A network science approach to the Internet

During the past decades considerable progress has been made in developing research methods that are particularly suited to examining network relations in the Internet and their consequences for outcomes such as the diffusion of applications and services, the winner-take-all dynamics of digital markets, and the spread of malware. Social scientists have long recognized the importance of interdependencies among agents in social systems and the need for coordination in an economy with division of labor. Network science provides powerful tools to analyze both topics in innovative ways. It needs to be distinguished from two other emerging fields – Internet science and web science – which share common interests but do not primarily use network science tools. This chapter provides an overview of network science methods and their potential to study the Internet and its economic effects.