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Personally I am a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point. So it was scary to me to read the title of a recent Fast Company article, “Is the Tipping Point Toast?”
The article has prompted numerous authors and observers to weigh in on the topic in the blogosphere:
- Social Media Top 5: RIP Influencers
- Influencer Influenza?
- Book Review: Six Degrees
- Debating the Influencer model: Fast Company debates the "Un-Tipping Point"
- Stephen Denny: Tipping Points and the Psychology of Influence
- Rather Than Target "A-Listers" Talk To "The Usual Susceptibles"
- The Hyping Point
- So Who Will Spread The Word That There Aren't Influentials?
- Influentials On The Web Are People With The Power To Link
- Forget the A-List After All
- Is The Tipping Point Wrong?
- Influencers not so influential, trends out of our control
- The Debate Continues: What Is Influence?
- Pure Viral Marketing - A Pipe Dream?
With all the buzz, I just had to see if I could get in front of Duncan Watts, the scientist who stirred things up in the Fast Company piece written by Clive Thompson. Currently on sabbatical from Columbia University and working for Yahoo, Watts does a great job explaining a very complicated and intricate research project that he and his partner Peter Dodds conducted called Challenging the Influentials Hypothesis. Pay special attention to what he says, not only about his research but about social networks in general.
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About Duncan
The general goal of my research is to better understand the structure and dynamics of social interaction. To that end I am interested in a number of related topics, including the structure and evolution of social networks, the origins and consequences of social influence, and the nature of distributed "social" search. My approach to research is problem-driven and interdisciplinary, drawing on insights and methods from sociology, psychology, and economics, as well as from physics and computer science. I am also interested in exploring the potential of electronic communications data, such as email, as well as online communities and web-based experiments, to resolve some of the measurement difficulties associated with studying human interactions and social dynamics.
Selected Publications
Books
D. J. Watts. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. (Norton, New York, 2003).
D.J. Watts. Small Worlds: The Dynamics of Networks Between Order and Randomness (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1999).
Papers
M. J. Salganik, P. S. Dodds, and D. J. Watts. Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market. Science, 311, 854-856 (2006).
G. Kossinets and D. J. Watts. Empirical Analysis of Evolving Social Networks. Science, 311, 88-90 (2006).
D. J. Watts. The “new” science of networks. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, 243-270 (2004).
P. S. Dodds, R. Muhamad, and D. J. Watts. An experimental study of search in global social networks. Science, 301, 827-829 (2003).
D. J. Watts, P. S. Dodds, and M. E. J. Newman. Identity and search in social networks. Science, 296, 1302-1305 (2002).
D. J. Watts. A simple model of global cascades on random networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 99, 5766-5771 (2002).
D. J. Watts. Networks, dynamics and the small world phenomenon, American Journal of Sociology, 105(2):493-527 (1999).
D. J. Watts and S. H. Strogatz. Collective dynamics of 'small-world' networks, Nature, 393:440-442 (1998).
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Comments
Paul,
As bad as it is that many of us jumped on the Gladwell bandwagon train without proper due diligence, its disturbing to see the same type of glob and superficial assertions that come from Watts' research which for all its hubris, doesn't disprove The Influencers theory whatsoever.
Watts' research is perhaps interesting from an academic standpoint but holds very little credence (or at least his conclusions) in real world culture, marketplace and society.
Posted by: Sean Moffitt | 02.26.08
You don't need a research study to know that people influence other people. This is a given fact of life. I believe what gets lost in WOM is that it first requires something worthy of talking about, something different, something relevant to the group. Secondly, the influencers have to be trusted sources of information. Third is that virtually all, but some special cases, of viral marketing are very limited to small groups which means you have to create many of them (much like rain hitting a lake) to achieve good marketing results.
Too many marketers think you can come up with any lame “trick” and that it will spread like wild fire and make you millions. Yes, this does happen but it is akin to hitting the lottery. A good example is this is the consumer created video craze. Everyone is doing it, but it it being done well. Probably not. WOM is hard work and requires many pegs be placed in the right holes.
I don’t discount Duncan Watts research I just don’t really see the relevance.
Posted by: Harry Hallman | 02.26.08
Sean
Actually Watt's research was quite detailed
He redid the research around 6 degrees of separation and he redid testing around music popularity with 2 separate control groups to help make his point (not prove a point).
Also having met him I can tell you he is not prone to superficial assertions.
Posted by: Paul Dunay | 02.26.08
Harry
Totally agree that many marketers think there can be some sort of Silver Bullet that will automatically spread like wildfire.
The point is if you have a good "story" it will naturally spread virally.
Watts point is that it is not isolated to a small group of Uber Influencers - it is much more random that that.
Posted by: Paul Dunay | 02.26.08