How Popularity Influences Popularity
I was reading a post on Lightspeed Ventures (a popular venture capital blog) recently about how being popular has been found to make you more popular.
In one study of over 12,000 volunteers, researches manipulated what they claimed were the top selling songs and worst selling songs — it surprisingly (or perhaps not so surprisingly) had a dramatic effect on what the volunteers claimed they liked. Another study by a Chinese restaurant found that just by calling certain items “popular”, sales on them increased by 13-20%.
There are some well proven real world examples which are related to domain development as well. Take forums for example — one is more inclined to join a forum which appears busy than one that isn’t frequently posted on. This is a well known fact and many people when starting forums will pay people to post to create the illusion that their forum is busy until it becomes busy on it’s own. Similarly, a forum with “exclusivity” or something which makes it “special” will also encourage people to join as they believe (and they might be right) that this forum will provide more value than other less exclusive forums.
I’m not a big fan of tricking visitors, however I’m willing to bet if I created 20 or so fake comments on certain posts all praising the post that those particular posts would get more comments. Just think about those Wordpress plugins which are available such as “Most Popular Posts” — people wouldn’t keep making such plugins unless they produced results.
Look at popular blogs like say, John Chow or Shoemoney — does their popularity not further drive their popularity? Have you ever noticed how easy it is to manipulate social media such as Digg by creating the illusion that something is popular?
Stanley Milgram, a famous psychologist, once demonstrated that by getting a sufficiently large number of people to look at the sky will in turn encourage others to look up — even if there is absolutely nothing worth looking at! Curiosity got the best of them.
I sometimes wonder if that’s part of the reason being green is so popular right now — surely most people didn’t just realize 1 or 2 years ago that many of the things we do are destroying our environment, yet many of these new “green” customers have only been converted to the green side within the past year or two. Does this coincide with corporations and the media promoting green as both a popular and intelligent choice? How might this increase the profits of corporations which are able to create an eco-friendly image or offer products which cater to these green customers?
How might you be able to create or increase your popularity? It’s certainly something worth pondering.
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May 31st, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Great post and I agree 100%. Look at movie stars and actors. It is a huge snowball effect they just grow and grow.
Thanks
TeenDomainer
June 1st, 2009 at 9:42 am
Great article, one of the best written I have read in a long time, your articles get better and better Reece, and not just the same old boring, played out topics that are constantly written about.
The Green part is definitely true, and I will be completely honest with you when I go to the store I purchase things such as paper towels and toilet paper that are the “green” alternatives, recylced etc.., Now I have only done that for the last year although I knew pollution was not good when I was 10.
Popularity is like winning, you know they say winning cures all, and in a lot of situations (I am not talking about anything illegal or actually hurting someone) its true, someone who thinks you suck as a coach and could go on and on, starts complimenting you after a winning streak. Popularity works the same way, many who think they are cool, even if they have not heard of something, will listen or buy just because its popular, and they need to maintain their cool, popular status.
Development is that way now, it became popular to say the word, now everyone wants to be a developer. If PPC rates went up 100 % I think development would lose some popularity, even though it has the same merits with or without PPC.
June 1st, 2009 at 10:09 am
Ray,
Thanks for your kind words and well thought out comment. I certainly agree with you regarding PPC payouts and the likelihood of domainers becoming developers. I’m trying to get more into domain development myself and yes, I do have to admit that I’ve been driven to it both from decreasing PPC but even moreso from the popularity domain development now has in the domain world.
Nobody is going to argue that more domainers becoming developers or more consumers caring about the environment are bad things. On the other extreme, we have people who think they need to wear the latest high fashion, drive an expensive car, etc to be fully appreciated. Our ability to be influenced by what others find popular no doubt has both benefits and costs. Now we just need to harness this knowledge to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:54 am
Reece, You are absolutely right! There is no way other than this: "Stand out from the crowd and you will be watched". How to stand out from the crowd? It depends on the specific field and the audience.