The Numbers Guy examines the feedback loops of news sites’ most-popular lists:
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. “If you see a crowd around a building, you pop over and see what everyone is looking at,” says Jimmy Leach, editorial director for digital at the Independent newspaper in the U.K….
A more-recent study demonstrates that popularity in the music world, even unearned, breeds more popularity. Researchers enlisted more than 12,000 volunteers to rate and download songs from among 48 chosen for their relative obscurity. Some of these volunteers were lied to: At a certain stage in the experiment, popularity rankings for this group were reversed, so the least-downloaded songs were made to appear most-downloaded.
Suddenly, everything changed. The prior No. 1 began making a comeback on the new top dog, but the former No. 47 maintained its comfortable lead on the old No. 2, buoyed by its apparent popularity. Overall, the study showed that popularity is both unstable and malleable.
