Tipping Point continues to tip…
Yet more evidence that Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point might not be quite so valid. The anti-Tipping buzz began with this article in Fast Company that takes a good hard look at the work of Duncan Watts, who set out to scientifically test the theories set forth by Gladwell. What he found largely contradicts much of Gladwell’s thinking.
Now comes this piece in ArsTechnica:
“The amount of online “chatter” about an upcoming album release directly correlates to higher physical album sales, according to two researchers with New York University’s Stern Business School. Professor Vasant Dhar and former student Elaine Chang observed the trends of 108 albums released during the first two months of 2007 to see how different outside elements affected (or predicted) sales once the albums became available, and found that all of them had some effect or another. But certain elements of online chatter—namely blogs and social networks—seemed to be fairly accurate predictors of future success.”
While “influentials” will always have a certain amount of influence, the internet changes the dynamics so that many more people can be influential without ever being singled out in any significant way as “influentials.” The more small-world influencers out there, the more power they have when they agree on sometime – whether that be an album, a designer or just an idea.
Tags: arstechnica, blogS, company, duncan, fast, gladwell, influentials, point, tipping, watts
Uncategorized | admin | 
February 10, 2008 2:35 pm
Subscribe