Now getting down to the actual review. The book is about the factors that cause seemingly random things become a wild success and spread like wild fire. In short its a study of why and how social epidemics are caused and spread. It studies social epidemics and how they grow and who are the important people involved in causing it to spread.
The book basically deals with three topics.
1.The law of few
2.Stickiness Factor
3.Power of Context
The first chapter starts with the law of the few
He starts by showing that most epidemics are spread due to the works of only very few people. These people he categorises into mavens connectors and Salesmen.
The basic idea is that the connector is a guy who loves aqquiantances and has loads of contacts they act as the main mode of communication between many people. For example when a new restaraunt comes up and the connector visits it and likes it he will spread the info to all his contacts and thus spread the epidemic. On the other hand the mavens are the ones who have all the information at their fingertips and are pre programmed to help others and tell them all there is to know about it. For example if a maven comes to know you are looking to buy a tv he would make sure that he tells you all the info regarding tv's and help you chose the best one for your need and also tell you where you are likely to get the best deal.
The last kind of person is the salesman he is a person who is responsible for making people want something they are the kind of people who talk really well and have a natural flair for convincing others that what they are offering you is the best you can get. They are the kind of people who know what exactly to say and when and they also have certain body language and gestures that adds to their talking.
The above three kinds of people are the people who are really important in spreading epidemics.
Stickiness Factor
The next topic he deals with is the stickiness factor which basically address how some things are a great success while others are not. Why some tv shows succeed while others fail. In this chapter he extensively analyses the sesame street tv show and the reasons why it was a great success. He basically starts by explaining the scientific research done by the sesame street team on such a low budget and how their research was instrumental in sesame street being such a great success. It basically deals with things like what kids like to watch and how certain things in combination with different backgrounds are sticky but are not sticky when combined with certain other things. It basically analyses what is important in making a tv show sticky in the minds of children and makes them want to watch the show again again again. Then it goes on to analyse how the show blues clues bettered the approach used by sesame street and used a very radical and different approach of playing the same epsiode over and over again 5 days a week cause that is what is really sticky to the target audeince of 3 to 5 year olds.
Power of context
Power of context chapter goes on to show how the context changes the way things happen it uses many example like reduction of crime in newyork city by removing all grafiti from walls and so on, The basic concept being that all the crimes comitted are comitted because of the environment and that more crimes occur in a more dirty graffiti filled area cause people think its ok to commit a crime when they see others doing the same thing. Also it takes several other examples and explains the power of context
Conclusion
The last chapter is conclusion. It basically consists of several case studies that range from teen suicides in some remote island in micronesia and how there are always more suicides in a month in which the paper carries a huge story of a suicide and how there are more accidents on days after suicide cover stories or cover stories of car accidents. He then goes on to explain this relation in comparison with the teen smoking issues in US. He analyses what went wrong in the drive against smoking and what actually must be done to stop smoking. He analyses what causes teen to smoke and what is the best way to prevent it from becoming a habit.
Thus overall i feel the book is a really nice book. It is very interesting and makes you at look at life and people around you differently. You start noticing things you would not have noticed before and you notice a lot of subtle clues and hints for what they really are and are able to understand and associate why certain things just spread like epidemics. Overall very nice read.
