Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Viral math | Felix Salmon

Felix Salmon on the math of going viral on Facebook.



As a result, the important formula isn’t S·F·C; rather it’s S·F·FBT·C, where FBT is the probability that the article you’re sharing is going to actually appear in your friends’ feeds. In recent months, Facebook has been taking its foot off the throttle quite dramatically — but no one knows how long that’s going to last.


I am not sure what Facebook does to Facebook does to affect this process.  However, the model is one of chaos where changes in the initial condition (S, F, C etc) can have dramatic effects and can be adapted to other situations.

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