The Rottweiler Index

Just come across this clever bit of decline of social capital measurement by Alex MacGillivray of NEF:

“In 1992, there were eight terriers to every Rottweiler. But in the last decade, Rottweiler numbers have grown inexorably, on average by 11 per cent a year. By 2001, they finally outstripped Yorkshire terriers in popularity.”

Read the briefing here.

Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality

Clay Shirky applies some network theory to weblogging:

“In systems where many people are free to choose between many options, a small subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention, or income), even if no members of the system actively work towards such an outcome. This has nothing to do with moral weakness, selling out, or any other psychological explanation. The very act of choosing, spread widely enough and freely enough, creates a power law distribution.”

Read the full article here.

John Perry Barlow interview

JPB is interviewed on MotherJones.com and takes a good swipe at the content industries:

“All of this stuff about ‘piracy’ is fomented entirely by the record and film industries to perpetuate business models that are completely disadvantageous to both the creator and the audience. They are the biggest pirates in the deal. But unfortunately, they have made huge amounts of campaign donations and essentially created all the government that money can buy.”

Read the full interview here.