Science counts: The Infonaut Takes on Quantum Influence
October 12th, 2006
Last week, at Asia de Cuba in San Francisco, I engaged in a lively conversation with Mr. Peter Hirschberg, one of the founding minds behind Technorati. In our conversation about the role of influence on ranking and popularity, I posited the notion of quantum influence – nope, we’re not talking particle/wave theory here, just the kind of “moving target” of influence in the blogosphere. While some proclaim to hold the Holy Grail algorithm that pinpoints THE uber-blogger in any particular category, the Infonaut would suggest that just as quantum physicists determined, the observer inevitably gets intangled in the observation. Thus the uncertainty principle…and “blogebrity” have a unique and curious connection. If YOU posses the power to scientifically prove influence, kindly contact me at once.
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Once upon a time, a Stanford student was trying to build an algorithm to track and value academic influence… and then Backrub became Google, which may or may not be THE most important influence on the web today, but it’s definitely a participant. The whole rigamarole around google’s protection of its algorithm weights seems to be proof positive that people can’t make observations about influence on the internet without becoming influences.
Did you know that there are laws (or so I’ve heard) against doing surveys on popularity with children, because those surveys tend to make life worse for the unpopular kids?
Comment by Jake — November 13, 2006 @ 10:10 pm