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Online shopping and the Harry Potter effect (newscientist.com)
7 points by peter123 on Dec 25, 2008 | hide | past | favorite | 1 comment



Topic: Internet and Fat Long Tail

Message: The winner takes it all

Data: Better connectivity between people makes big titles even bigger and unpopular one more unpopular.

a small preference for a particular object can, in a highly connected community, rapidly amplify and spread its appeal. </quote>

Possible explanations:

1. Ultimately, he thinks, our love of the blockbuster might just reflect that we humans are constantly looking out for a place to go - one where others are too. "A culture is a set of people who share beliefs, ideas and artefacts," says Watts. "Blockbusters are part of that - they make us feel we belong to something." </quote>

2. It is this sort of software [recommendation engines] that paradoxically promotes the sales of blockbusters and is responsible for homogenising choice online ... To make useful recommendations, most collaborative filters must make guesses based on previous sales and ratings. But obscure products do not have much in the way of sales or ratings to go on, so the filters tend to point us towards more mainstream offerings </quote>




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