Success and Failure in Cultural Markets

Success and Failure in Cultural Markets project was motivated by a puzzling aspect of contemporary cultural markets: successful cultural products, such as hit songs , bestselling books, and blockbuster movies, are orders of magnitude more successful than average; yet which particular songs, books, and movies will become the next "big thing" appears impossible to predict. The project proposed that both of these features, which appear to be contradictory at the collective level, can arise from the process of social influence at the individual level. To explore this possibility empirically a website was constructed where participants could listen to, rate, and download new music. Using a "multiple worlds"…