Mathematics of Lessig blog influence
I've been wondering if I can do any mathematics to figure out the reach or influence of Lawrence Lessig's blog posting "the classic Declan" (rebutting Declan McCullagh falsely characterizing him as favoring "ending anonymity."). Especially compared to Declan's hatchet-jobs. I can just hear it now "Look, look, behold the power of blogs. This person has a flame-thrower. Seth, you have a kitchen-match. That means you can fight fire with fire".
The "Technorati" blog index site currently ranks Lessig as #94 out of "1,323,388 weblogs watched". We're talking, drumroll,
Not the top 1%. Rather, again the top 1% of the top 1%.
There's the mathematics. That's A-list for you. The blog-blather is ludicrous.
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in cyberblather | on December 06, 2003 11:59 PM (Infothought permalink)
I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.
Are you saying that it's not good that Lessig has criticised Declan? Or that he doesn't have as much reach as Declan? Or that he's *too* powerful? Or that there's a strong contrast between the impact of your writiing here and Lessig's?
Danny, I think he's saying "Even though Lessig was able to respond to Declan on his blog and correct a misunderstanding, don't extrapolate that it'll work for anyone. Lessig has a very popular blog, unlike almost everyone else."
Aaron has it right.
The idea was my trying to get some sort of quantitative handle on "very popular". That is, to mathematically rebut the blog bubble-blowing of the hype that with BLOGS, we have the power to fight back against journalist misrepresentation ...
A very, very, few people have that power - Lessig is literally in the top 100, out of more than a million, there.