The law of the vital few & Twitter.
Today I found an amazing blog post that talks about how different Twitter users have more juice than other Twitter users.
"The Law of the Vital Few" is amongst the most unpopular ideas of the last two hundred years. First framed as a social scientific truth by the early 20th century Italian economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, it states that in all societies throughout human history a small minority of individuals and organizations have held more political, economic and cultural power than the majority. The Law of the Vital Few isn't a popular idea with the majority, of course, because it marginalizes most people making them, at best, incidental players in their own histories. Nor is Pareto's idea particularly popular with elites because it can be used to expose their power and reveal the self-interest of their actions.
The microblogging service Twitter proves the Law of the Vital Few. As Silicon Alley Insider's Peter Kafka argues today, "while Twitter theoretically treats all voices equally, some carry much more weight than others." Thus, a dominant Twitterer like Jason Calacanis has 43,000 followers while a total loser like myself has only nine. Twitter could indeed have been invented by Pareto as proof of his theorem. One has only two possible identities on Twitter: either as a follower or as the followed. A small percentage of Twitterers like Colbert, Scoble, Obama, Arrington and Winer are the followed distributing their wisdom to their followers. While all the rest of us, Pareto's huddled masses, are doing the following.
The post and the Peter Kafka which is mentioned both talk about ways that a Alpah - level 10 power - Twitter users can cause cascade effect by reporting things that are not true.
Interesting reading. Check them both out.
-N
