Why are certain videos on YouTube watched millions of times while 90 percent of the contributions find only the odd viewer? A new study reveals that increased attention in social systems like the YouTube community follows particular, recurrent patterns that can be represented using mathematical models.
The Internet platform YouTube is a stomping ground for scientists looking to investigate the fine mechanism of the attention spiral in social systems. How is it possible, for example, that one YouTube video of a previously unknown comedian from Ohio can be viewed over ten million times in the space of two weeks and 103 million times during its total two-year running time? The video was aired on the most popular television networks in America and the comedian Judson Laipply has meanwhile become a YouTube star. Social scientists, economists, mathematicians and even physicists are fascinated by this "herding", as the herdlike behavior in social networks is often termed, on YouTube.
Read the rest, it's very interesting (and applicable to other media, not just YouTube).