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Comment by scott_s | Hacker News Reader

As what becomes popular on HN has a large dosage of randomness, I would not draw conclusions based on this one data point.

There was an interesting study from a few years ago that investigated what factors make a song a hit. They seeded various songs with various levels of initial popularity, and their general conclusion was that popularity begets popularity. Hence, initial conditions matter a lot, and they are largely random. (And if anyone can find that study, please let me know. I have tried multiple times to find it, but I can't.)

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Is this the study you had in mind? http://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/salganik_dodds_watts06_full.p...

I read about a similar experiment in the book "Automate This" by yc alum Christopher Steiner. They seeded a music website with unknown songs and it turned out that whatever was liked first benefited from the Matthew Effect. ie, people tend to like whatever is already labelled as "popular". Definitely an interesting study, but I fear we've gone far off topic.

I think it is. Thanks!

Yes it does have a large dose of randomness, and I'm not taking this single data point. I have more data. Quite a lot, actually.

And the challenge in the analysis is to find the factors that affect it, and then add the randomness to get the right results. To find the underlying behavior, even when the data are affected by randomness. It is kinda what I do, and that's partly why I'm working on it. I'm learning things as I go, both about the techniques and methods, and about the HN "community".

Interesting study you mention - I've made a note both to look out for it, and to let you know if I find it.

Thanks.

These are the droids that are being referred to I think: http://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/musiclab.shtml "Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market."

This wiki article might be of interest too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect_(sociology)

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