Why Things Become Unpopular

http://www.physorg.com/news163333282.html

by mixmax • 17 years ago

25 12 17 years ago

youngj• 17 years ago

Explain this: http://google.com/trends?q=uggs&ctab=0&geo=all&d...

mixmax2• 17 years ago

Since uggs is a winterboot it's pretty obvious that it will be searched for in winter time. If you take this into account the graph shows a slow and steady increase in uggs searches.

Interestingly it seems that uggs are more popular in the northern hemisphere since there are not a lot of searches in what is the northern hemispheres summer and the southern hemispheres winter.

Accorindg to the theory they should have a good chance at making a valuable brand, since their growth is slow but has been increasing over the last four years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugg_boots

Erf• 17 years ago

There are also a lot more humans in the northern hemisphere.

jerryji• 17 years ago

Will it explain this? -- http://google.com/trends?q=twitter

mixmax2• 17 years ago

Yes, and it isn't good news for twitter ;-)

imp• 17 years ago

This seems to be extrapolating a lot from the original results. The study was done only on baby names. When you name a person, you have to consider the effect it will have on the person's whole life. So it makes sense to avoid names that are trendy. They'll sound stupid 50 years from now. I don't think people evaluate social networks or other products the same way.

slpsys• 17 years ago

I'm also confused by their own summary: "According to the results, the quicker a cultural item rockets to popularity, the quicker it dies. This pattern occurs because people believe that items that are adopted quickly will become fads, leading them to avoid these items, thus causing these items to die out."

That seems to me to describe the psychology of non-adopters, not peak adopters who drop the service/item quickly.

mike_organon• 17 years ago

Yes, and they are also assuming that sudden popularity causes the sudden unpopularity. If the trend they describe is true and common, it might be because the large number of people who follow fads quickly don't stick with them for long, while things of real quality take longer to be accepted, but are worth keeping around. Therefore, the conclusion and advice should be to make a high-quality product.

mynameishere• 17 years ago

Test it yourself

http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager

I think the next bubble to burst is any name starting with QU

http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=QU&ms=false...

...just like happened to the letter "D" back in the 1950s

http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=D&ms=false&...

Also, I don't like where this is going. Just getting started with the parabola,

http://google.com/trends?q=4chan&ctab=0&geo=all&...

GeneralMaximus• 17 years ago

So what does this mean for, say, Twitter or the iPhone?

Ardit20• 17 years ago

Well in the 90's everyone adopted the internet quickly but it hasn't died yet. So I guess there are trends and stable products.

Why Things Become Unpopular

Related Stories