There's been more online discussion about the Tipping Point concept, and skepticism about how often one really happens. I wrote recently about Fast Company coverage of a Yahoo! researcher who is debunking the idea, based on hard evidence derived from email patterns (see Tripping Over the Tipping Point). Now a market research firm has substantiated the belief that Gladwell's supposed influencers don't influence nearly as many as he suggested. In Influencers Possess Less Clout, Pollara has found that "popularity doesn't always equate to credibility."
Read/Write Web says "The new data from Pollara does say that people use online social networks to make buying decisions, but they trust the advice of their friends and family on those networks far more than they do high-profile bloggers."
In an unsurprising development, some active bloggers want to debunk the debunkers, claiming that the Tipping Point is alive and well. The Yahoo! research was of course, intended to help marketers understand how best to sell on the web. And influencing an idea -- such as kicking off a public policy debate -- is certainly a different phenomenon from influencing a consumer buying decision. Read/Write Web makes a good point that "The study is complicated by the fact that it focused on buying things. The biggest blogs on the web aren't places readers go to find ways to spend money. There's an almost rabid rejection in blog reading communities of anything that costs money, in fact."
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