Speaking of trendiness . . . in the Collective Dynamics Group this Friday aft:

Speaker: Matt Salganik
Affiliation: Graduate Student, Sociology, Columbia

Title: Experiments on the collective generation of superstar cultural objects

Abstract: Many cultural markets exhibit an extreme variation in the success of individual objects yet remain unpredictable. These two apparently contradictory aggregate-features are shown to be consistent with interdependence of decision-making at the individual level. These ideas are explored in a series of four web-based experiments involving a total of 27,379 subjects. We discuss implications for the sociology of culture as well as social science in general.

I’m looking forward to this one.