Social Networks and Social Information Filtering on Digg

I read the abstract and -- pardon my ignorance -- decided not to read the rest.

It basically says that, referencing the friends feature, users tend to like submissions made by friends, and thus this type of "social filtering" may be useful in targeting information. The paper concludes with "Promising or perilous, social media appears to be the future of the web."

I'm sure it gets more interesting, but in terms of common sense, you won't lose much by reading the summary I just gave.

What I want to know is how a social network, designed to a certain style, with a certain target audience in mind, needs to change itself to suit its changing audience, based on the socially filtered information the users produce.

The article also mentions tyranny of the minority. One front page, many users. Limited resources. Competition of resources. A useful discussion would be on what kind of design approach would allow more flexibility in distribution of resources.