22 Dec 09 Balloonist and Darth Vader
I share two things with you: first a joke and second a photo. Both are entertaining.
A joke, sent to me by a friend:
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below.
She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.”
She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be an Obama Democrat.”
“I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?”
“Well,” answered the balloonist, “Everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.”
The man smiled and responded, “You must be a Republican.”
“I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?”
“Well,” said the man. “You don’t know where you are or where you are going. You’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it’s my fault.”
A photo, bordering on the absurd, from one of my favorite news sources, “Pictures of the Day” by the Wall Street Journal:
Yes, this happened today. And no, I don't know why.
Tags: balloonist, dark vader, democrats, hot air balloon, nyse, obama, pictures of the day, republicans, star wars, stock exchange, wall street journal, wsj
20 May 09 Huffington Post and Popularity Ranking
Today’s Wall Street Journal published a story about the proliferation of “online news providers rank[ing] the top 10 most-read, -emailed or -commented articles on their home page.”
Sure, we’ve all seen them. The New York Times breaks it down by “most emailed,” “most blogged,” “most searched,” and– randomly appended at the end– “most popular movie.”
The BBC’s shows regional results and even tells you some basic information about the flow of web traffic to the BBC News site.
The WSJ article points out that the Web, on the whole, likes to be “instantly quantifiable.” But the author, Carl Bialik, shows how these popularity rankings are public, and can easily create a “positive-feedback loop.”
Which brings me to the Huffington Post. Oh sweet, sweet Huffington Post: you collection of politics, celebrity guest columnists and enormous red links on your homepage.
Matthew Salganik, a Princeton professor, who co-authored a study on popularity in the music world, is quoted in the WSJ as saying:
Deducing merit from popularity “can lead to self-reinforcing snowballs of popularity, which can become decoupled from the underlying reality.” These snowballs can grow much larger than their competitors, leading to winner-take-all markets.
And maybe it doesn’t matter so much if the most-deserving entrant wins, whether it’s Britney Spears ruling pop, or a gossip item leading a list of most-read news articles. “If we view the role of cultural products as giving us something to talk about, then the most important thing might be that everyone sees the same thing and not what that thing is.”
I am not sure whom to blame more: the Salganikian positive-feedback loop or Huffington Post’s readership. But, alas, the top stories on the Huffington Post speak for themself:
Hard-hitting news selected by, well, us
I’ve embedded the live “Most Popular on HuffPost” below. I hope that by the time you’re reading this, you will already have decided who is hotter when soaking wet.
Tags: aggregators, bbc, bialik, embed, huffington post, huffpo, new york times, news, nytimes, popularity, princeton, rankings, reporting, salganik, top stories, traffic, wall street journal, web traffic, wsj
