Recently, Facebook has been plagued by the 30 Day Song Challenge. In mid May, a couple of friends and I devised an experiment: post Friday by Rebecca Black as each song in the 30 day challenge to investigate the trend in the number of people who 'like' the post each day.
Predictions
Before beginning the experiment, I predicted that the number of likes would follow a trend similar to the 'SHCAS curve' seen on sites like IMDb for so-bad-they're-good films. Additionally, I thought it likely that we would see small peaks on Fridays and days on which the song was particularly relevant to the description.
Results
The graph below shows the number of likes each day. As expected, there is a large peak on the first day, followed by a few smaller peaks. However, there is no final peak as predicted. In fact the number of likes after day 5 is so low that very little can be inferred from the data after this point.
Number of Likes by Day
In searching for other trends, I plotted the total number of interactions (likes and comments and likes of comments). This graph has both the initial and the final peaks as expected.
Number of Total Interactions by Day
Conclusion
In conclusion, the total number of interactions followed a similar pattern to the one I expected, with the initial peak largely due to likes and the final peak due largely to comments. If I was to repeat the experiment, I would make note of the number of 'unfriends' I received each day. These numbers could potentially be very large.
