] In systems where many people are free to choose between
] many options, a small subset of the whole will get a
] disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention, or
] income), even if no members of the system actively work
] towards such an outcome. This has nothing to do with
] moral weakness, selling out, or any other psychological
] explanation. The very act of choosing, spread widely
] enough and freely enough, creates a power law
] distribution.

Very interesting essay on things such as the 80/20 rule, as applied to everything from wealth distribution to the popularity of individual web logs.

] The basic shape is simple - in any system sorted by rank,
] the value for the Nth position will be 1/N. For whatever
] is being ranked -- income, links, traffic -- the value of
] second place will be half that of first place, and tenth
] place will be one-tenth of first place. (There are other,
] more complex formulae that make the slope more or less
] extreme, but they all relate to this curve.) We've seen
] this shape in many systems. What've we've been lacking,
] until recently, is a theory to go with these observed
] patterns.

This same pattern is present in the MemeStreams community.

Several weeks ago, Decius posted up some of my proof of concept work (http://www.memestreams.net/visual.html) in this area. Since that time, I've been working on code to produce detailed statistics and enable visual navigation of the social network present on MemeStreams. As I'm writing this, I'm flipping over and looking at it, unsure what to say about it. Its cool. You are all going to love it. :) I'll have more to say when its ready to go live on the site. I still have a fair amount of work to do on it.

] The basic shape is simple - in any system sorted by rank,
] the value for the Nth position will be 1/N. For whatever
] is being ranked -- income, links, traffic -- the value of
] second place will be half that of first place, and tenth
] place will be one-tenth of first place. (There are other,
] more complex formulae that make the slope more or less
] extreme, but they all relate to this curve.) We've seen
] this shape in many systems. What've we've been lacking,
] until recently, is a theory to go with these observed
] patterns.

This same pattern is present in the MemeStreams community.

Several weeks ago, I posted up some of Rattle's proof of concept work (http://www.memestreams.net/visual.html) in this area. Since that time, he's been working on code to produce detailed statistics and enable visual navigation of the social network present on MemeStreams. Its cool. You are all going to love it. :)