This chapter examines the buzz about one product, the publication of the novel Cold Mountain, which became a surprise blockbuster bestseller. It's impossible, of course, to expose all the buzz about such a book, since millions of comments related to the book have leaped from brain to brain. But analyzing this case allows us to peek at the invisible networks and try to use this snapshot to figure out how buzz spreads. The following excerpt follows some of the initial buzz.

Mike Jordan, a professor of social psychology at Francis Marion University (near Florence, South Carolina), first read about the book in a prepublication review in the Charlotte Observer. He was fascinated by the review and asked the people at his local store, Booksamillion, to give him a call when the book became available. Once he and his wife read the book, they were so excited that they bought three more copies and gave them to their parents and to a good friend. In addition to telling people about the book, Jordan posted a review on Amazon.com, participated in a panel discussion about the book that was aired on the local-access television station, and, although he is not a literature professor, gave Cold Mountain as one of the options for a graduate-student project. Six students chose the book, and "all but one of them loved it and then passed it on and talked about it with other people," he says. Seeing the activities of a network hub such as Jordan, you start to realize how powerful individual "hubs" can be in promoting a product they like.

Researchers who study communication refer to what happened in Jordan's case as an example of the "two-step flow model": Information flows from mass media to network hubs and from the hubs to the rest of the population. But while the two-step flow model obviously describes part of how buzz spreads, buzz refuses to follow neat patterns. The word about products doesn't disseminate only from the media to opinion leaders and from them to the rest of us. Jo Alice Canterbury, for example, a reader from the San Francisco Bay Area, heard about Cold Mountain from a friend, not from the media. She went on to tell at least fifty people about the book. First she recommended it to her husband. This was an important side current within families—a lot of women felt that Cold Mountain was a book that they could pass on to their husbands. She also remembers telling family and friends in New Orleans, Arkansas, Texas, Colorado, and Washington. A flight attendant who crossed the Pacific three times a month, Canterbury took advantage of dozens of opportunities to tell passengers about the book.

Also in this chapter: • Where Did It All Start? • How Buzz Became Buying • How Risk Affects Buzz • Industry Buzz Versus Customer Buzz