Which is more likely to make you buy a book: a glowing writeup from a published book reviewer, or a bunch of four- and five-star Amazon ratings? Adam L. Penenberg thinks with some justification that it’s the latter. Exhibit A: the NYT reviewer who dissed his first book.

The October issue of Publishers Weekly is quite forward-thinking for such an old world product. One glance at this edition’s cover — an artistic recreation of the magazine’s Twitter page — and it’s clear that this isn’t your great-great-grandfather’s Publishers Weekly. Actually, it’s the Viral Issue and it’s online and on newsstands now — what’s inside might surprise you.

How much is your Facebook page worth to Facebook? Probably a few hundred dollars, according to a Facebook app, Viral Loop, that’s collecting data as it is promoting a book of the same name. How much are celebrities’ pages worth? For many, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

In anticipation of his new book Viral Loop about “the interconnectedness of today’s socially networked society,” Adam Penenberg (Fast Company, Wired) has commissioned the design of an eponymous Facebook application to test his thesis. Described as part “infographic, game, and research project” Viral Loop estimates what slice of Facebook’s billions are all thanks to your activity on the site.