By identifying geography and queries in p2p environments an Israeli professor and his team are indentifying the next hit maker. Thought this was a great insight into using the sociolology of the internet for a specific purpose.
The geographic location of an emerging artist is the key to predicting their success, explains Shavitt. “If an artist has the potential to be successful, people will first start noticing them in the small geographical area where they live and perform.” In fact, a potential pop star will typically enjoy thousands of downloads a day on a local level, while remaining relatively unheard of on a national level. A large divergence between local and global popularity, called the Kullback-Leiber divergence, is a strong indicator of star potential. The algorithm measures the K-L divergence to produce a short list of potentials, of which 15 to 30 percent will go on to reach national popularity within weeks.
