Ben McConnell

In what could be a future sign for expensive, PR-driven product launches, bad buzz on Twitter seems to have knocked down Sacha Baron-Cohen's docucomedy "Bruno" after a promising opening.

Good numbers from a midnight-Thursday… Continue

Fun video that puts word of mouth and evangelism into context (via Charlene).

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Good Q&A with Bill Wasik, the originator of flash mobs and a number of other viral cultural experiments, and his belief why some things take off and others don't.

The short answer is, naturally, a good story. The even better answer is: nanostories -- small, yet telling details that become a story when the big picture-story is too big to grasp.

Q: Does our fixation with nanostories make us less able to focus on the mega-stories, the long-term problems such as global warming or the eco… Continue

A non-profit website founded and staffed by academics and researchers is giving consumer products a score based its health, environmental and social impacts.

GoodGuide is growing quickly in scope and influence, and its work may usher in a new metric: social value. You could say social value is how well a company practices good corporate stewardship, something that early adopters and buzz-spreaders often concern themselves with.

For GoodGuide, responsible… Continue

When it comes to word of mouth influence on purchase decisions and ethnicity, there are few differences, except for one category: restaurants.

When it comes to restaurant decisions, whites tend to be influenced by word of mouth more so than other groups, especially hispanics. Th… Continue