Sunday, July 16, 2006

Quick! Read this story while it's still news!

How long does it take for new news to become old news?

Thirty-six hours, tomorrow's New York Times will report. The research paper, written by University of Notre Dame professor Albert-László Barabási and others, is called Fifteen Minutes of Fame: The Dynamics of Information Access on the Web.

That's the half-life of a news story — in 36 hours, half of everyone who will read a news story online has read it.

So be quick! Read the short version of this story. Or read the long version of this story (registration required at the New York Times). Or read the abstract from Physics Review E. Or heck, go all out and and read the whole research paper. Just read something before it's old news.

Actually, the research paper was published in May. The New York Times just decided to make a big deal out of it tomorrow.

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1 comment:

  1. Tom AccuostiMonday, July 17, 2006 12:02:00 AM

    Hmm, looks like WS posted this an hour and a half ago.
    Zzzzzzzzzz.

    ReplyDelete

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