Connectors and the rise of the social media notables

I loved Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point (2002), and read it pretty quickly a few years ago. I still highly recommend it to students, colleagues, and friends.

Gladwell discusses "connectors"--folks that, in essence, facilitate the spread of ideas through their vast networks of personal associations--in a chapter devoted to the subject. Tonight I witnessed a real-life example...

I, along with 63,963 other people, follow Shawn Robinson on Twitter (@ShawnRobinson, if you care to visit). His website tells us that he specialized in nuclear power on Naval submarines, so I have some instant respect, but I don't know him. In fact, I've never met him before in my life, but I have found some of his insights, condensed to 140 characters or less, somewhat interesting in the past. So I follow him, and he follows me.

Mr. Robinson made the following announcement to 63,963 people earlier this evening:

My daughter just started on Twitter be nice to her and give her a follow! @samantharawrrr

Now Samantha has 1,517 followers, and a direct channel of engagement and distribution to 1,517 people. That may very well rival the distribution of the weekly newspaper from the small town I grew up in. She has been live on Twitter for about six hours, and has posted three times, yet 1,517 people believe that she is worth following because her father, somewhat a social media notable, suggested they do so.

How's that for Gladwell's theory on connectors?

Tonight it took Shawn Robinson a couple of hours to do what small town newspapers and similar publications have labored for decades to accomplish. "That there is a true revolution," you might say...

So what does this say about the rise of the social networking elite? Perhaps the rise of powerful families whose influence in the virtual world mirrors that which other families have enjoyed in the physical world? Beyond that, and most importantly, what does this seemingly trivial example tell us about the way we as a society engage with and evaluate the information that comes our way?

One connector. One newbie. Six hours. 1,517 people. Wow.