AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Influentials On The Web Are People With The Power To Link - Publishing 2.0

In the networked web era, influentials may not be people with a particularly connected temperament or Rolodex, or people who control and influence monopoly distribution channels (e.g. newspapers), but rather people who influence the network by leveraging the most powerful force on the web — the link. People like bloggers, top Diggers, del.icio.us power users, Facebook users who share lots of links, MySpace users who embed videos, Twitter users who post lots of URLs, or any social network user with links to lots of friends.

This idea jives with a provocative article in Fast Company about a new disruptive Duncan Watts theory. After last year debunking the “wisdom of the crowds” using the theory of cumulative advantage, Watts is back, this time debunking the idea that there is a class of “influentials” who is more likely than others to spread ideas, trends, product endorsements, or anything else that can be spread virally. The existence of unique classes of influencers was the premise behind Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. But Watts, a Columbia professor doing work for Yahoo Research, says it’s all bunk.

The more Watts examined the theory of Influentials, the less sense it made to him. The problem, he explains over lunch in a Midtown restaurant, is that it’s incredibly vague. None of its proponents ever clearly explain how an Influential actually influences.

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