Google buys Pyra

Oh oh -- it looks like content distribution (well, discovery anyway) has integrated with content production! Call the FCC!

Seriously though -- this may have ramifications for the powerlaw distribution in weblogs mentioned earlier. As I said in that post -- "[a]ny technology that strengthens non-weblog quality content location will weaken the power law distribution" and Google, last time I checked, was certainly a quality content location system that was not a weblog.

So, might some fancy Google collective algorithms weaken the powerlaw distribution? Maybe. Do we care? Actually, I don't think so. People who get hung-up on the inequality of blog readership aren't asking the right question -- how would the system respond to a shock? Suppose an A-list blogger goes bad, or stops blogging -- how long will they retain the #1 position? Or suppose a great new blogger starts writing -- how long will it take them to find an audience? If either of these take a long time then, and only then, is the powerlaw distribution inefficient.