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Benford, Zipf and the blogosphere

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  • Craig Depken

Abstract

The blogosphere is a relatively recent development on the Internet and, for this reason, has received limited empirical investigation. This short note investigates whether the popularity of the 500 most popular blogs during August and September of 2005, as measured by in-coming links, followed the first-digit distribution attributed to Benford (1938) and the rank-size distribution attributed to Zipf (1949). The evidence suggests that the blogs investigated were not characterized by either empirical regularity, consistent with blog popularity being caused by network externalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Craig Depken, 2008. "Benford, Zipf and the blogosphere," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(9), pages 689-692.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:15:y:2008:i:9:p:689-692
    DOI: 10.1080/13504850600735270
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    1. Nitsch, Volker, 2005. "Zipf zipped," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 86-100, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Bogdan Vasile Ileanu & Marcel Ausloos & Claudiu Herteliu & Marian Pompiliu Cristescu, 2019. "Intriguing behavior when testing the impact of quotation marks usage in Google search results," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(5), pages 2507-2519, September.
    2. Paul Hofmarcher & Kurt Hornik, 2013. "First Significant Digits and the Credit Derivative Market During the Financial Crisis," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 7(2), June.

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