First Monday

	This month: January 2010 A persistence paradox It is widely believed that persistence in most endeavors is essential to their success. By its very nature, persistence enhances both the quality of an outcome and its probability of success because people are willing to endure failures before achieving a desired goal. To test this hypothesis on a massive scale, this paper examines the production histories and success dynamics of 10 million videos uploaded to a popular video Web site. Even though the average quality of submissions does increase with the number of uploads, the more frequently an individual uploads content the less likely it is that it will reach a popularity threshold. These paradoxical findings, which hold both at the aggregate and individual levels, throw light on the act of production in the attention economy.

	Also this month! Detecting spam in a Twitter network Spam becomes a problem as soon as an online communication medium becomes popular. Twitter’s behavioral and structural properties make it a fertile breeding ground for spammers to proliferate. This paper considers spam around a one–time Twitter meme — “robotpickuplines”, discovering structural network differences between spam accounts and legitimate users.

	Podcasts Eduardo Villanueva joins us for Part 2 of our ongoing series, entitled Openness 2.0, to discuss the economic, educational, and lingustic challenges of establishing openness in developing nations.


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