What is Critical Mass?

I read an interesting article on MediaPost about the definition of critical mass. I've included an excerpt, as well as my thoughts on the article.

From Cori Treffiletti: "My definition of 'critical mass' is when a new media format enters the mind of the mainstream audience, which can be measured by when it shows up in an article in Time, Entertainment Weekly or People (none of which I am affiliated with in any way). When any of these media vehicles includes the item in an article, or writes a piece specifically about it, then middle America knows it exists. I don't believe critical mass can be measured by a number anymore, because of my other belief that mass media is dying a slow and painful death. The audience is segmenting, and though you may find an aggregate audience that cumes to a larger number, you will never be able to find a large aggregation of like-minded people influenced by the same media again."

When I worked at a PC games startup before joining the ad ranks, we did some really innovative work with P2P networks. We were (to my knowledge) the first company to make legitimate money off of Bit Torrent less than a year after its debut at Defcon (2002-2003 ish). At the time, Bit Torrent was a long way away from being on anyone's 'mainstream' radar.

But the networks were flourishing. Millions of users from around the world joined in. Word of mouth in the geek-o-sphere. In fact our company heard about it from a guy at a conference, not from any website or news source. Bit Torrent reached critical mass well before anyone had heard of it.

Maybe my definition is skewed by the internet, but I look at critical mass as a point when a trend become self-sustaining. Sites like YouTube don't need to advertise. A large number of people visit and post links on their blogs, causing more people to visit who then send links in an email to their friends, causing people to visit and contribute more content, which then causes more people to visit, etc... It now has a life of its own. Acknowledgement in mass media can surely help kickstart this self-sustainment phase, but I don't think it's a requirement.

Read the full article here: What's Critical Mass?