Amphibious Adam Richardson 
Debunking The Tipping Point
A fascinating article in the February issue of Fast Company about Duncan Watts, a researcher at Yahoo, who questions some of the core concepts of Malcom Gladwell's book The Tipping Point
[T]astemakers, Gladwell concluded, are the spark behind any successful trend. "What we are really saying," he writes, "is that in a given process or system, some people matter more than others." In modern marketing, this idea--that a tiny cadre of connected people triggers trends--is enormously seductive. It is the very premise of viral and word-of-mouth campaigns: Reach those rare, all-powerful folks, and you'll reach everyone else through them, basically for free.
Yet, if you believe Watts, all that money and effort is being wasted. Because according to him, Influentials have no such effect. Indeed, they have no special role in trends at all.
Read the article at Fast Company
(Also posted at our Matter/Anti-Matter blog at Cnet)
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I don't think Watts does a
Simon Owens - February 5, 2008
I don't think Watts does a very adequate job of debunking the "influencer" theory, he just waters it down a little bit. While the influencers aren't the sole trend setters, I've seen enough real-world examples of their power to show that it isn't exactly imaginary.
What Watts and Gladwell are
Stacey Gillar - February 8, 2008
What Watts and Gladwell are talking about is beyond trends set by celebrities. So, yes, there are the rich and famous that set trends, but this is about average people being influencers.
I think influencers change for each trend, as well as between trends, and that deciding who is leading it and who will be the next leader is ever-changing. It's almost like the chicken and egg story. Did the trend show who was the trend leader, or was there a leader who spawned the trend?
So, to me, that is more similar to Watts thought of "how susceptible the society is overall to the trend."
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