Do you think you could measure something by the frequency of reposts? There must be some function with a component of memory and freshness of content that could tell us something about the course of a news aggregator.
It's like meme travel. How do we measure the velocity of a meme? We'd have to get the position and ..?
Can meme's have a location? Would it be some aggregate of its locations in the minds of those conscious of its existence?
It definitely tells us something about the relationship between populations of social networks. NYT, RRW, HN and they cross into physical realms as well and those take time to print and move between physical bodies.
So this goes back to the disappearance of technology because as time approaches infinity, meme velocity approaches the speed of light due to the increasing transparency of the technology medium, like light in a vacuum is the fastest it can go.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=589049