Buzz vaccination: I think the tech bust amounted to a massive immunization of people against buzz. In the heady days, people eagerly scanned for the latest tidbit, the first murmur of the Next Big Thing.
They were ultra-susceptible. Almost any meme could get started, and sweep the population. All it took was a mention by one or more key sources, and sometimes, not even that much. The contagion threshold truly was some approximation of zero.
But the bust gave everybody a terrible headache, and a sense of "how stupid could we have all been?" A powerful antibuzz agent, skepticism born of embarrassment and financial loss, returned to its normal place in the population. Marketers need super-infectious memes if they are to have any hope to exploit the buzz channel these days. It has to be plausible, it has to be compelling, it has to make a lot of sense...
8:31:11 AM
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