Working the Fringe for the Middle

The research is starting to flow in to validate the idea of engaging user/fan bases. Sunil Gupta at Harvard Business School is quoted in a New York Times article on the impact of Twitter and using the trending ability of the website to steer marketing.

“In the traditional world, marketing used to focus on the middle part of the bell curve and reaching out to them,” Professor Gupta says. “Now, the way to reach out to the middle part is through the extreme ends of the curve.” Those extremes, he says, include vocal detractors as well as ardent fans.

Would this mean that it's OK after all to touch the third rail of college sports -- message boards? Hmm, we talked about that back in 2007 to the SEC SID group in Destin. In fact, it dates to 2006 when Robert Gates as Texas A&M president was posting on message boards.