Burying unpopular news too easy on social networking sites

The popularity of online stories is often determined by the reception they get at social networking sites. Unfortunately, the overwhelming number of supporters for a particular topic could lead stories to be buried by either "abusive" users or simply those with an axe to grind. Well, this was Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols' theory anyway. He highlighted a couple of recent stories he wrote that are pro-Linux.

He noticed how they were initially popular, before being swiftly buried into oblivion. With 28.1 percent of traffic to his site coming from such social networking sites, the direct result is that tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of potential readers will never see such articles, even if they are compelling and useful content. The result is that popular news is elevated while less popular stories never see the light of day, regardless of their relevance.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Computerworld

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