A Great Example of Information Cascade

I think this blog forum is set up to make a perfect example of information cascade. It only shows only the title of the post and how many views it has received, which means most people look to the number of views to determine quality of the post. I know I have noticed that I am much more likely to click on a post that has more views. I have also notice that many post (because of the shear volume of them) are only getting around 5 to 20 views. So I want to see if I artificially make this blog post start with a lot of views, will more people click on this blog post than other blog posts?

What I will do is after I post this blog, I will click on the post until it has 75 views. I will then see how many more views it will have above 75 and determine if number of views has lead to information cascade and caused this post to get more views. If this blog post is pushed to the bottom of the page or the next page, I will add a reply post to put it back on the top. I will also say how many views it got before I did this and how many more views I will add (to make the post even more appealing).

This is a really great example. As I was deciding which posts to read, this blog caught my eye because of the many views. It is funny to think that many people will believe or do something out of convenience. The blogs on the first page are more likely to increase its number of views and replies because it is convenient. With the many new topics being posted, I haven't found myself going back to the 1st or 2nd page. I think that convenience is one of the main reasons why information cascades are easy to start; that's why it's really easy for rumors to spread.

Exactly the reason I clicked on this blog post! :sheepish look:

But great example. We see this in so many cases--choices being made based on you "see" your neighbor choosing. I myself am guilty of watching Youtube videos based on the "view count" for example, or I sometimes choose restaraunts (if I look them up beforehand) based on how many people commented on them on review sites like Yelp.

These "silent" information cascades I think are more prevalent that people think. Information passed by word of mouth I think, is just plain gossip.

Lauren has a good point, and it brings up a very interesting question. How do videos on YouTube become popular? For every video that has 1 million+ views, at some point it was newly posted and had 0 views, right? So what starts an 'information cascade' on YouTube? My personal opinion is that youtube is dependent on power users, people who spend many hours a day watching videos on their favorite topics, and it is these power users that promote videos to friends through other sites (facebook, blogspot, 4chan, myspace, blogger, etc.). Does anyone else have other ideas, or know how YouTube videos become popular?

https://socialnetworks101.forumotion.net/blog-posts-f4/youtube-and-information-cascade-t97.htm

The above link and this current thread contain discussions on basically the same topic. Moderators, is it possible to combine them?

I agree with that. It all starts out with a great YouTube video. The creater must tell not only their strong links, but weak links as well. Otherwise, I don't think a video would gain popularity as easily. I think that it is mainly the weak links who will contribute most to the popularity of a video because they will be spreading the video outside of the video's creators social network. It spreads faster with multiple social networks now knowing about the video; otherwise with idea that most people in the creator's social network knows each other, the video will stay popular within that social network and have as many views as those in the social network until it is no longer interesting. I think that the main source of popularity of YouTube videos the promotion through other sites; this way people in very different social networks can view the video and spread it. (On Facebook, I see videos that people I don't know, but are friends with one of my friends on Facebook, post to my friends' Facebook on my newsfeed.)