(en) Social media as popularity contest
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Whilst the drive for popularity might be most obviously manifest in thoroughbred social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace, it is also present, albeit less conspicuously, in sites where social objects (e.g. videos, photos, bookmarks) are nominally the focus. Similarly, the prominence given to ‘number of followers’ (interesting terminology again) in Twitter is instructive, as is the existence of services such as TwitDirand Andrew Baron’s recent (abortive) attempt to auction his Twitter account (with followers, naturally).
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