Students Try To Break Into the A-List

The video below chronicles one student's experience in the Internet Famous class at Parson's New School, which aims to empower students to build popularity on the Web from the ground up. The students' grades are assigned according to how their "fame" hits measure up to their classmates'.

I thought it particularly interesting how Andrew's work, though perhaps far superior and more entertaining than his classmate Liz's, didn't rank as high on the class's "fame-o-graph" the first week. The professor explains that Liz registered for her accounts on social media sites before Andrew and, in fact, before she even entered the class. I thought it a prime example of the power law distributions Shirky discusses - and an interesting look inside a pioneering digitally-focused college course.