an idea that is catching on

In his book, Six Degrees, Duncan Watts explores and explains how complex networks cause results that seem indirect or chaotic but are really quite organized. In today's NYTimes Sunday Magazine, Watts published a summary of his recent work called, "Is Justin Timberlake a Product of Cumulative Advantage?" In their recent research, Watts' team demonstrated how our social networks and perceptions of popularity more strongly influence our taste in music than does the quality of the music.

So does a listener’s own independent reaction to a song count for anything? In fact, intrinsic “quality,” which we measured in terms of a song’s popularity in the independent condition, did help to explain success in the social-influence condition. When we added up downloads across all eight social-influence worlds, “good” songs had higher market share, on average, than “bad” ones. But the impact of a listener’s own reactions is easily overwhelmed by his or her reactions to others. The song “Lockdown,” by 52metro, for example, ranked 26th out of 48 in quality; yet it was the No. 1 song in one social-influence world, and 40th in another. Overall, a song in the Top 5 in terms of quality had only a 50 percent chance of finishing in the Top 5 of success.

That reminded of an old Advanced Environmental Geomatics problem that we explored on the Intrinsic Values of the Landscapes of Highlands. It was a follow-up to Jones and Jones' Intrinsic Values project in Puget Sound.

But does Watts' work prove scientifically that there is no such thing as the intrinsic or aesthetically perfect landscape? How do designers learn from this? And does this mean we should build cheap, plain parks and just work to get people excited about them? I really hope that this raises some exciting new research in regards to landscape perception and popularity.