Robert Downey Jr. (Photo: Wikipedia.org)

If you turned to Wikipedia for a pre-Avengers deep dive into the Marvel canon or refresher on Harry Potter's defenses against the dark arts, you are apparently not alone. What's more, your digital breadcrumbs might be a preview of coming box-office receipts. A team of researchers has shown that Wikipedia data can predict how popular a film will be.

A team from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics looked at 312 movies that came out in 2010 (think Inception, Toy Story 3 and Twilight: Eclipse) and built a mathematical model that measured the number of readers and editors for the movie's Wiki page. The model's data was juxtaposed with box office earnings and showed almost a 77 percent correlation between popularity on Wikipedia and big opening weekends.

Not sure if we need a complicated math model to understand this though. It's pretty obvious that movies who have the most rabid fan bases are the ones sitting in front of Wikipedia making sure that everything is accurate. After all, having a stubborn commitment to accuracy is one of the cornerstones of nerd culture.

Nerds are a good explanation for the number of editors that popular movies have, but what about the readers? They're probably the movie geeks who like to turn to their friends in an Iron Man premier and whisper "Pssst, did you know Robert Downey Jr. has performed on six soundtracks?" Or they might be the impatient people who need to spoil movies for themselves before they even get in line for popcorn.

Avatar, the highest grossing movie of all time, has a section of its Wikipedia page dedicated to postage stamps. Need we say more?

(Photo: The Weather Channel)

Winter is coming, at least according to every Game of Thrones fan on Reddit. This year, the witty folks at the Weather Channel have decided to name every winter storm. As it turns out, whoever was tasked with writing these names is kind of a huge sci fi nerd.

D is for Draco--perhaps as a nod to Mr. Malfoy in the Harry Potter series? Lord of the Rings fans will recognize the G name--it's Gandolf; for Star Trek fans, there's Khan for K and "Q," the devious God character who drives Captain Picard insane, for the letter Q.

The best part is that the Weather Channel refuses to cop to the fact that the names are ripped out of sci fi/fantasy lore. For each name, they provide context to demonstrate where it's from. Gandolf is "a character in a 1896 fantasy novel in a pseudo-medieval countryside," they reason. Q is "the Broadway Express subway line in New York City."

We hope this season's biggest Nor'easter comes in time for the letter K so that we have an excuse to clench our fists and scream KHAAAAAN at the angry sky.

Just follow the owl

In a video posted to the site this morning, J.K. Rowling, who personally owns the digital rights to her work, revealed that she will be cutting out the middleman and selling audio and e-books of future Harry Potter stories through the Pottermore site.

Perhaps more interestingly, through a series of cool stop-motion animations, Rowling revealed that she will be bringing Harry Potter's enormous fan community into the creative process.

"I'm thrilled to say that I'm in a position to give you something unique, an online reading experience unlike any other. It's the same story with a few crucial additions. The most important one is you. Just as the experience of reading requires that the imagination of the author and reader work together to create the story, so Pottermore will be built in part by you, the reader."

Crowdsourcing ideas for a book, film or album isn't new. But the scale of Harry Potter makes this a watershed moment in the form. Betabeat would argue that, in fact, a book is the result of author and a reader who's imaginations are working separately. Each creates their interpretation alone, and the book is where they meet.  Giving the reigns over, at least partly, to readers during the writing process, is a novelty of the digital age.

Rowling has also smartly added an element of gaming/augmented reality to the process. "I'll be joining in to, because I'll be sharing additional information I've been hoarding for years about the world of Harry Potter. Pottermore is open to everyone from October, but a lucky few can enter early and help shape the experience." Readers who want early access are given the cryptic command, "Follow the owl."

What gives Rowling? You've been hoarding Harry deets for years? Time to give the power back to the people. Publishers beware.