4 ms·

Are news hype topics based on demand, or chance? (expert opinion plz)

2 points by marojejian 9y ago

marojejian 9y ago
OP: I'm talking about hype cycles on topics such as: Bots, AI, or if your memory serves: Google Glass, Pokemon-Go, Chat Roulette etc. Many of these topics had real events behind them, but then they dominate & persist in news circles (esp tech) for a long time. Is this because: 1) Readers are more interested in these topics (even after a while) & thus such news outperforms financially or 2) They randomly get above a threshold, then the new outlets follow each other, and then readers feel they need to keep reading these stories, to keep in the loop. 3) Other
cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
Here's what a true "expert" would say: "nobody knows". Anyone who claims to understand the complex nature of human behavior is either a fraud or inexperienced (therefore not an "expert"). There are so many factors in play and not one is deterministically the single dominant reason that these things happen. "it depends". For example, Google Glass got hyped up because Google--one of the most powerful tech companies in the world--was behind it. So was Pokemon Go. Pokemon already had a powerful brand. Chat Roulette got hyped up because it was viral--it actually had tons of usage--this one is completely different from google glass because there clearly was demand, but like many other random/anonymous apps they failed to figure out the solution to keep the service quality up. AI is a bit different, because it was almost a perfect storm of all kinds of things happening simultaneously. It was part artificial pr (like google glass) and part substance (Google did succeed in improving their AI engine so that it actually beat the Go master, and they also open sourced Tensorflow, etc.) Bots was mostly hyped up by VCs and entrepreneurs who got sick of platform dependence. Because mobile has become the dominant platform and iOS appstore and google play store de facto duopoly, the startup guys wanted to get away from that and tried so hard to "make bots happen", but it was flawed from the beginning because these guys are supposed to be building products for users, whereas the whole bots movement was focused on the VCs and founders themselves instead of users. So yeah, it depends.

2 points by marojejian 9y ago

OP: I'm talking about hype cycles on topics such as: Bots, AI, or if your memory serves: Google Glass, Pokemon-Go, Chat Roulette etc. Many of these topics had real events behind them, but then they dominate & persist in news circles (esp tech) for a long time. Is this because: 1) Readers are more interested in these topics (even after a while) & thus such news outperforms financially or 2) They randomly get above a threshold, then the new outlets follow each other, and then readers feel they need to keep reading these stories, to keep in the loop. 3) Other

cocktailpeanuts 9y ago

Here's what a true "expert" would say: "nobody knows". Anyone who claims to understand the complex nature of human behavior is either a fraud or inexperienced (therefore not an "expert"). There are so many factors in play and not one is deterministically the single dominant reason that these things happen. "it depends". For example, Google Glass got hyped up because Google--one of the most powerful tech companies in the world--was behind it. So was Pokemon Go. Pokemon already had a powerful brand. Chat Roulette got hyped up because it was viral--it actually had tons of usage--this one is completely different from google glass because there clearly was demand, but like many other random/anonymous apps they failed to figure out the solution to keep the service quality up. AI is a bit different, because it was almost a perfect storm of all kinds of things happening simultaneously. It was part artificial pr (like google glass) and part substance (Google did succeed in improving their AI engine so that it actually beat the Go master, and they also open sourced Tensorflow, etc.) Bots was mostly hyped up by VCs and entrepreneurs who got sick of platform dependence. Because mobile has become the dominant platform and iOS appstore and google play store de facto duopoly, the startup guys wanted to get away from that and tried so hard to "make bots happen", but it was flawed from the beginning because these guys are supposed to be building products for users, whereas the whole bots movement was focused on the VCs and founders themselves instead of users. So yeah, it depends.