I think there's another variable the model can't really account for (and I'm surprised wasn't mentioned much in the article, though perhaps it was already covered previously). People actually do like some songs better than others.<p>I expect that what friendships actually do is strongly modulate this like/dislike for particular songs. Based on the kind of music favoured in Europe that would probably go a long way explain why Sweden did so well and Norway did so terribly.
What I always find interesting was the differences between "the charts" and the results of the Eurovision Song Contest.<p>Like this time, we saw the "charty" songs somewhere in the middle while really strange stuff came up.<p>How does this happen? Do only people call there who do not like the chart stuff coming from the US or sounding like the usual mainstream? Or do maybe really less people like the music that is played on the radio?<p>For me, I don't call for any shows on TV. In this case I would have propably called for the russian babuszkas because they were funny. I don't like the stuff that german mainstream radios play here and most of the songs on the usual chartlists are crap in my eyes (or ears). So I can't really make up a solution by myself.