In physics, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle states that particles do not have a precise momentum. This creates something known as EPR paradox where it is impossible to predict both the position and the momentum of a quantum particle at any point of time. Their movement can only be understood via their momentum, not via their current location.

The same principle can be applied to understand social media. If a quantum particle is a specific message (e.g. blog post), it’s current location (e.g. how many people read it) cannot be used to predict it’s future location. Only it’s momentum (how quickly the post is acquiring new readers) can. Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and other websites already use the concept of “trending topic” (not simply the most popular one) to bring attention to these messages.

For example, the number of views a specific YouTube video has right now is not an effective method of predicting how viral or popular it will be. Instead, we should be looking at how quickly are new viewers acquired.