|
Subscribe RSS 2.0 feed |
Subscribe Atom feed If you wish to receive email notification, please here » |
« Nokia has started to love Mac | Main | Updating software: increasingly important, increasingly more feasible »
Wow. Our viral network is starting to work magnificently. Nokia didn't do any official announcements about the beta version of Nokia Media Transfer for Mac. Just a small mention by me, Charlie, and Dameon was more than enough to get the snowball rolling. There are already hundreds of blog mentions and dozens of (online) mainstream media stories.
Interesting.
I can think of three explanations:
1. Me, Charlie, and Dameon have become omnipotent influencers
2. The story was genuinely interesting (i.e. the app was good and/or in tremendous demand)
3. Collectively, our blog network works magnificently.
As much as I would like to believe in theory #1, research shows that the truth is a combination of #2 and #3.
Duncan Watts wrote in February 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review:
...we found that in certain circumstances, highly influential people have a significantly greater chance of triggering a critical mass – and hence a global cascade – than ordinary people. Mostly, however, cascade size and frequency depend on the availability and connectedness of easily influenced people, not on the characteristics of the initiators – just as the size of a forest fire often has little to do with the spark that started it and lots to do with the state of the forest.
If the network permits global cascades because it has the right concentration and configuration of adopters, virtually anyone can start one. If it doesn’t permit cascades, nobody can.
Our network is starting to approach the state that permits global cascades, started by virtually anyone. And I like it.
Comments
I strongly agree with #2. Looks like there are a lot of nokia owners out there with macs that have been waiting for a "Nokia MAC suite" for a really long time. Nokia finally released something close to it.
Posted by: Mark Guim | June 12, 2007 06:44 PMI'm not familiar with the situation for Nokia/mac users, but in general I really feel we're starting to see the realization of the inherent potential for 'many to many' communication the Internet has given us.
I in many ways envy the kids growing up now, their use of technology comes almost as naturally as breathing. I can _make_ software, but their use of it is likely to surprise all of us. :)
Readers here tend to be at the bleeding edge of communications technology, and know how to make a story propagate through the network if they so choose. The difficult bit is to convince them it's something worth sharing with others..
Posted by: Vegard | June 12, 2007 07:57 PMI'd like to think #1, but only because it benefits my ego. ;)
But seriously, I think the Mac community overall is passionate and is willing to be part of the global cascade. The fact that Nokia Media Transfer is a good app helps, of course.
Some schools of thought suggest that Mac owners are "alpha influencers." While the overall market share for Mac users is small, each happy Mac user will bring many more PC users over to your application.
Posted by: PhoneBoy