These two
neglected aspects of Internet hype and culture led to the
trouncing of erstwhile promising web media companies while
their business models were exposed as wishful thinking.
The second mistake was to exclusively cater to the needs of a
highly idiosyncratic group of people (Silicone Valley geeks
and nerds). The assumption that the USA (let alone the rest of
the world) is Silicone Valley writ large proved to be
calamitous to the industry.
In the 1970s and 1980s, evolutionary biologists like Richard
Dawkins and Rupert Sheldrake developed models of cultural
evolution. Dawkins' "meme" is a cultural element (like a
behaviour or an idea) passed from one individual to another
and from one generation to another not through biological -
genetic means - but by imitation. Sheldrake added the notion
of contagion - "morphic resonance" - which causes behaviour
patterns to suddenly emerged in whole populations. Physicists
talked about sudden "phase transitions", the emergent results
of a critical mass reached. A latter day thinker, Michael
Gladwell, called it the "tipping point".
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