Memetic Lifecycles

[jducoeur]

Hypothesis: the faster a cultural phenomenon takes off and the bigger it gets, the faster it will peak and then fade into being a niche thing. Fifteen minutes of fame can, sometimes, be fifteen seconds.

I've had this theory in the back of my mind for a long time, but Pokemon Go looks like it'll make a *lovely* data point to examine...

Comments

[jducoeur]

Ah -- hadn't heard about those, but I'm not surprised. Scaling up a system *that* fast is really, really hard, and I suspect they've been taken by surprise by some of the challenges...

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Getting supply to meet demand (while not setting oneself or one's distribution chain up for a big bust) is traditionally one of the big problems in these cases.

[metageek.livejournal.com]

People at work are complaining that the most annoying bug is when it crashes right when you make a capture.