Scott Counts
I am a Senior Researcher in the Nexus Group at Microsoft Research, working in the area of computational social science. I study technology-mediated social phenomena both at large scales like in today's social media systems, and at small scales, down to the level of neurons. Broad topics of interest include authority and influence, emotional expression, and the "cognition of the user" in modern information environments. Outside of research, I like bikes and mountains.
Primary Research Areas
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Social media analysis Information flow, finding experts, emotional expression: understanding and leveraging social media. Representative papers: Major Life Changes and Markers in Social Media (De Choudhury, Counts, & Horvitz, 2013) Identifying Topical Authorities in Microblogs (Pal & Counts, 2011) |
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Cognition of the User How do psychological processes impact our interactions with others and with
information in social network and media environments? Representative papers: Taking It All In? Visual Attention in Microblog Consumption. (Counts & Fisher, 2011) Microblog Crediblity Perceptions: Comparing U.S. and China. (Yang, Counts, & Morris, 2013) |
Selected Talks
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| Your Brain on Facebook (IWCSM 2010) | What's In a @Name? (IWCSM 2011) | Attention and Bias in Social Information Networks (WIN 2011) |
Recent and Selected Publications
De Choudhury, M., Counts, S., & Horvitz, E. (2013) Major Life Changes and Behavioral Markers in Social Media: Case of Childbirth. CSCW '13. Best paper nominee
Yang, J., Counts, S., & Morris, M. (2013) Microblog Credibility Perceptions: Comparing the United States and China. CSCW '13.
Monroy-Hernandez, A., boyd, d., Kiciman, E., De Choudhury, M., & Counts, S. (2013) THe New War Correspondents: The Rise of Civic Media Curation in Modern Warfare. CSCW '13.
De Choudhury, M., & Counts, S. (2013) Understanding Affect in the Workplace via Social Media. CSCW '13.
De Choudhury, M., Counts, S., & Gamon, M. (2012) Not All Moods Are Created Equal! Exploring Human Emotional States in Social Media. ICWSM '12.
De Choudhury, M., Gamon, M., & Counts, S. (2012) Happy, Nervous, or Surprised? Classification of Human Affective States in Social Media. ICWSM '12.
Morris, M., Counts, S., Roseway, A., Hoff, A., & Schwarz, J. (2012) Tweeting Is Believing? Understanding Microblog Credibility Perceptions. CSCW '12. Best paper nominee
Fisher, K., Counts, S., & Kittur, A. (2012) Distribued Sensemaking: Improving Sensemaking by Leveraging the Efforts of Previous Users. CHI '12. Best paper nominee
Monroy-Hernandez, A. Kiciman, E., boyd, d., & Counts, S. (2012) Narcotweets: Social Media in Wartime. ICWSM '12.
Counts, S., & Fisher, K. (2011) Taking It All In? Visual Attention in Microblog Consumption. ICWSM '11.
De Choudhury, M., Counts, S. & Czerwinski, M. (2011) Identifying Relevant Social Media Content: Leveraging Information Diversity and User Cognition. HT '11.
De Choudhury, M., Counts, S. & Czerwinski, M. (2011) Find Me the Right Content! Diversity-Based Sampling of Social Media Spaces for Topic-Centric Search. ICWSM '11.
Pal, A., & Counts, S. (2011) What's In a @Name? How Name Value Biases Judgment of Microblog Authors. ICWSM '11.
Pal, A., & Counts, S. (2011) Identifying Topical Authorities in Microblogs. WSDM '11.
Paek, T., Gamon, M., Counts, S., Chickering, M., & Dhesi, A. (2010) Predicting the Importance of Newsfeed Posts and Social Network Friends. AAAI '10.
Fisher, K. & Counts, S. (2010) Your Brain on Facebook: Neuropsychological Associations with Social Versus other Media. ICWSM '10.
Counts, S. & Fisher, K., & Hoff, A. (2010) Social Intellisense: A Task-Embedded Interface to Folksonomies. ICWSM '10. [video]
Yang, J. & Counts, S. (2010) Comparing Information Diffusion Structure in Weblogs and Microblogs. ICWSM '10.
Yang, J. & Counts, S. (2010) Predicting the Speed, Scale, and Range of Information Diffusion in Twitter. ICWSM '10.
Counts, S. & Fisher, K. (2010) Mobile Social Networking as Information Ground: A Case Study. LISR '10.
Hsieh, G. & Counts, S. (2009) mimir: A Market_Based Real-Time Question and Answer Service. CHI '09.
Luther, K, Counts, S., Stecher, K., Hoff, A., & Johns, P. (2009) Pathfinder: An Online Collaboration Environment for Citizen Scientists. CHI '09.
Counts, S., & Stecher, K. (2009) Self-Presentation of Personality During Online Profile Creation. ICWSM '09.
Stecher, K. & Counts, S. (2009) Salsa: Leveraging Email to Create a Social Network for the Enterprise. ICWSM '09.
Stecher, K. & Counts, S. (2008) Spontaneous Inference of Personality Traits and Effects on Memory for Online Profiles. ICWSM '08.
Stecher, K. & Counts, S. (2008) Thin Slices of Online Profile Attributes. ICWSM '08.
Counts, S., & Fisher, K. (2008) Mobile Social Networking as Information Ground. HICSS '08.
Counts, S., & Smith, M. (2007) Where Were We: Communities for Sharing Space-Time Trails. ACM GIS '07.
Counts, S. (2007) Group-Based Mobile Messaging in Support of the Social Side of Leisure. CSCW Journal.
Riegelsberger, J., Counts, S., Farnham, S., & Philips, B. (2007). Personality Matters: Incorporating Detailed User Attributes and Preferences into the Matchmaking Process.HICCS '07.
Riegelsberger, J., Counts, S., Farnham, S., & Philips, B. (2006). Sounds Good to Me: Effects of Photo and Voice Profiles on Gamer Partner Choice. CSCW '06.
Best Note Award Fono, D., & Counts, S. (2006). Sandboxes: Supporting Social Play through Collaborative Multimedia Composition on Mobile Phones. CSCW '06.
Grudin, J., Tallarico, S, and Counts, S. (2005). As Technophobia Disappears: Implications for Design. Group '05.
Counts, S.J., & Geraci, J. (2005). Incorporating Physical Co-presence at Events into Digital Social Networking. CHI '05.
Counts, S.J., & Fellheimer, E. (2004). Supporting Social Presence through Lightweight Photo Sharing On and Off the Desktop. CHI '04.
LeeTiernan, S.J., Farnham, S.D., Cheng, L. (2003). Two Methods for Auto-Organizing Personal Web History. CHI '03.
LeeTiernan, S.J. & Grudin, J. (2003). Supporting Engagement in Asynchronous Education. CHI '03.
Fiore, A., LeeTiernan, S., & Smith, M. (2002). Observed Behavior and Perceived Value of Authors in Usenet Newsgroups: Bridging the Gap. CHI '02.
LeeTiernan, S.J., & Grudin, J. Fostering Engagement in Asynchronous Learning through Collaborative Multimedia Annotation. Interact '01.
LeeTiernan, S.J., Cutrell, E., Czerwinski, M.P., & Hoffman, H. Effective Notification Systems Depend On User Trust. Interact '01.
Recent Professional Activities
| General Cochair for CSCW 2012 |
| Program Cochair for ICWSM 2011 |
| Publicity Chair for CSCW 2010 |
| Associate Chair for ICWSM 2012, CSCW 2012, CSCW 2011, CHI 2011, CHI 2010, CHI 2009, C&T 2009, WWW 2009, CSCW 2008 |
Link Archive
- Social Intellisense video
- Research Directions for Social Computing workshop at GROUP 2007 - Co-organized with Cliff Lampe from Michigan State
- Mobile Social Software Workshop at CHI 2006 - Co-organized with Henri ter Hofte from Telematica Institute and Ian Smith from Intel Research.
- SLAM - Prototype social software for Windows Smartphones. No longer supported, Slam allowed flexible group formation and group-based communication for coordination, messaging, and photo sharing.
Contact:
Scott Counts
Microsoft Research
One Microsoft Way,
Redmond, WA 98052
mylastname@microsoft.com
