IM, therefore I am

There you enter your and your friend8217;s AOL screen name and click 8220;fight8221; to figure out who8217;s got a bigger score. Your popularity is based on who has you on their buddy list. There8217;s a complicated algorithm at work here. Your score is measured to the third degree, in the sense of the 8220;six degrees of separation8221; game that seeks to link anybody on Earth to any other person through no more than five friends.

Say a couple of your friends, A and B, have you on their buddy lists. A, who has three people on her buddy list, doesn8217;t add much to your score. That8217;s because she doesn8217;t have as many people on her buddy list as does B, who has 16. Your friend A is clearly not as well-connected as your friend B. Not unlike life.

Online popularity is the state-of-the-art measure of vanity. Never mind that Yogi Berra once said that 8220;anyone who is popular is bound to be disliked8221;; Mark Twain, after all, summed it up fine: 8220;He liked to like people, therefore people liked him.8221; In spite of that quiet but quaint voice in your head that says you shouldn8217;t care how you stack up, of course you do.

LAT-WP