Would you care to rephrase, answer or comment on my question on the same topic? http://www.quora.com/Upvoting-on-Quora/Is-the-upvote-bias-towards-more-popular-answerers-a-threat-to-quality-on-Quora I was working on an answer, but I see you have a lot of insight on the subject.

Honestly, I have the impression that twits allow interaction with more people, hence more likely people whom I know personally—but they are far less insightful than what you did a few years back with live-bloging. It's a shame, but I expect more interesting bits will come in a few days.

Was I misunderstood to assume that long tail was about lines on a log-log scale plot?

Your result is very interesting (I already teach that paper in class) but avoids two essentials elements : * What reduces global diversity is the existence of a common institution, not "the Internet". In many coutries (USA excluded) National News has been so important that any diversity offered by Web sites appeared as a new and welcome departure from monoculture; more generally, it's the distribution of news sources off- and on-line that you need to compare (and how connected they are). * Algorithms offer the possibility to decide whether to encourage niche or global success: Amazon makes more money, because more click-through, by suggesting Harry Potter every time, but they don't; it leverages their uniqueness and encourages reader's curiosity. Physical insitutions have the same recommendation for everyone, and cannot offer diversity in any other way then by being many. I'll put more details on my blog soon: twocroissants.wordpress.com