Pages tagged popularity:

linkiblog | How to Build a Popularity Algorithm You can be Proud of
http://blog.linkibol.com/post/How-to-Build-a-Popularity-Algorithm-You-can-be-Proud-of.aspx
Most-Popular Lists Breed More Popularity - WSJ.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124277816017037275.html

WSJ.com | Top-Ten Lists Abound Online, but Following the Herd Can Make You Wonder About the Wisdom of Crowds
Look at This Article. It's One of Our Most Popular Top-Ten Lists Abound Online, but Following the Herd Can Make You Wonder About the Wisdom of Crowds
another piece about "stupidity of crowds"
Popularity is, unfortunately, still all the rage.
These online rankings are public, creating a positive-feedback loop. The more popular something becomes, even if just from a random burst of interest, the more likely it is to grow ever more popular. And that has troubling implications about the effects of all sorts of popularity rankings, from bestseller charts to election polls. Frequently, popularity rankings speak less to the merits of what's being observed and more to the fact that crowds are observing it. In other words, peer pressure.
This used to be called the "lowest common denominator." Now it is called "the wisdom of crowds" or "the democratization of X." Anyway upshot: "Frequently, popularity rankings speak less to the merits of what's being observed and more to the fact that crowds are observing it."
"Top-Ten Lists Abound Online, but Following the Herd Can Make You Wonder About the Wisdom of Crowds"
"...the study showed that popularity is both unstable and malleable ... Deducing merit from popularity 'can lead to self-reinforcing snowballs of popularity, which can become decoupled from the underlying reality," says [the] study co-author."