Network hubs are individuals who communicate with more people about a certain product than the average person does. Researchers have traditionally referred to them as "opinion leaders." In industry they're called "influencers," "lead users," or sometimes "power users." The reward for paying attention to these people can be huge. Not only do they further the buzz about a new product—their central position sometimes allows them to change a message or even block it from spreading. In this chapter I explore who they are and why they matter. Later, in Chapter 9, I explain how they can help you spread the word. In the following excerpt, I describe one such network hub—Jim Thompson, a Canadian physician I interviewed for this project.

Jim Thompson first heard about the PalmPilot from his colleague Glenn Kowalsky. "Walking down the hallway in my hospital, he showed me this little machine he just got, and it instantly grabbed me," he remembers. "I knew that this was what I'd been waiting for."

Thompson got a PalmPilot right away, after checking a couple of Web sites to see if the Palm could accommodate a programmable calculator. Since then he has downloaded dozens of programs into his Palm. I was embarrassed to tell him that I had only downloaded one game in my entire life as a Piloteer—the term he uses to call us Palm users. Thompson really uses his. He plays games on the Palm in the dentist's chair, keeps his mileage log on it, updates his expense account after he pays the bills in restaurants, makes notes riding in the elevator. He even downloads books to it and reads them on flights.

No wonder he's been talking with so many people about the Palm. Thompson has developed a fascination with the machine. And he finds that he's not the only person intrigued by it. Everywhere he goes, people ask him about it. In addition to friends, family, people at the dentist's office, cashiers, fellow diners and passengers, he's been spreading the word to several medical groups he's been part of in Sundre, Alberta (ninety minutes north of Calgary), southern Alberta, and Charlottetown.

And then there's the on-line world. Shortly after he bought the PalmPilot, Thompson started a Web site he called "Jim's Health Care Pilot Page." He announced the page on newsgroups and immediately started to get inquiries from physicians who were using the PalmPilot or wanted to get one. From his home in a rural town in Canada, Thompson was addressing inquiries from Australia, the United States, Japan and other parts of the world. "I ended up being their tech support in a certain way," he says. He became recognized as an expert on the device's medical applications, and people turned to him for advice. And because he loves to help, he was happy to give it.

Also in this chapter: • The Four Types of "Network Hubs" • Who Are These Regular Hubs? • Are Network Hubs Early Adopters? • The Value Over Time of a Network Hub