The Shorty Award s are a pretty typical example of the “popularity contest” model so ubiquitous in social media. At their best, they can be used to measure popular opinion, and as we know (perhaps too well) popular opinion does not equal truth. Nor does it indicate quality or value. “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” -Einstein I’ve written before about the idea that ideas don’t spread because they are good , and the best way to understand this is to remember that there are plenty of good ideas or people that are not very popular and plenty of bad ideas that are, pet rock anyone? If we are trying to engage Twitter users to extract some value either for ourselves or our business, we must remember that sheer popularity, or collecting followers, is often a pretty useless endeavor.…