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The Tipping Point  By  cover art

The Tipping Point

By: Malcolm Gladwell
Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
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Publisher's summary

Discover Malcolm Gladwell's breakthrough debut and explore the science behind viral trends in business, marketing, and human behavior.

The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

Don't miss any of Malcolm Gladwell's books, articles, and interviews.
©2000 Malcolm Gladwell (P)2005 Time Warner AudioBooks

Critic reviews

Why is it that fashion trends change the way we dress? Why do various TV shows, movies, and books become so popular? Malcolm Gladwell provides a diagram of our society, along with an analysis of the strategies people apply to influence and mold its direction. Gladwell describes the personality types that create trends and those that influence others by "spreading the word." History takes on a whole new perspective as he describes events of early America that specifically follow his theories of "selling the public on an idea" and "social epidemics." Feedback from market mavericks further substantiates Gladwell's viewpoints. B.J.P. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEPT 01]

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What listeners say about The Tipping Point

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Z
  • 08-10-05

An interesting listen

I really enjoyed this audio book. I've heard Malcolm Gladwell speak before and had been interested to "read" The Tipping Point for a while. It's a mixture of anectdotes, psychology, economics, marketing, epidemiology and more.

The principle focus of The Tipping Point is how small changes, can bring about large effects. With examples such as marketing of Hush Puppies shoes, the broken windows theory, Airwalk shoes, Paul Reveres midnight ride, word of mouth, mass hysteria and more.

The only disappointing thing about this audio book is that it is abridged. If you like short 3 hour "quick listen"'s, you may not mind, but it felt to me, like a reasonable amount of material was cut out. This was even more apparent at the end during the afterword, when it references several things that did not appear in this audio book.

But overall, it was enjoyable, fairly "light reading", and kept my interest throughout.

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35 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Got it based upon reviews - was not disappointed.

I too found the work well written and well read and fascinating, though I did wonder whether the part that was abridged-out was just as good. Sure wish they had taught this stuff when I went to college 30 years ago. If you're starting your career or if you are thinking about how to run your business, reach your customers or influence your students, you'd be wise to listen. Little things can and do make all the difference sometimes.

I've been an Audible subscriber since 2000 and my original subscription was packaged with a Rio 500 player. I was so impressed with both in the dark days of 2001 that I bought stock in both companies. Audible to its credit acheived the tipping point. But what of Rio? Five years ago my Rio did most of what an IPOD can do today. It still does. Yet Rio was bankrupted twice over while the IPOD made a fortune for Apple and its investors. The IPOD "tipped", while the Rio tanked. Rio didn't get it, but Apple and Audible did. After listening to "The Tipping Point", I understand.

This book and another Audible selection I would recommend - "Linked: The New Science of Networks" (Barabasi) both give an interesting and perhaps essential slant on how things work in our well connected world. Don't set sail on your career without them.

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26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Great book, too drastic abridge job

This book is a true classic. I read the text version a while ago and thought i would hear a "refresher". I was hihgly dissapointed that many of the examples and topics covered in the paper version were not even mentioned here.
This book will get you acquianted with the general concepts, but if this stuff really interest you find the nonabridged version or read the paper back.

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18 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

No Audio Purchase, Read it only!

The book is incredible. The audiobook is lousy. The authors voice is great but the abridgment is truly horrible. I wonder if the author deliberately made the abridgement so bad to "tip" people into going and buying his book to fill in the gaps. Hmmmmm....

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointing. Overly abridged.

I had high hopes for this book (a breeding ground for disappointment, I realize), but they seemed well-founded. I had heard nothing but good things about it. The subject matter is fascinating and I had already listened to "Blink" (Gladwell's current bestseller), also read by Gladwell, and enjoyed it immensely. What went wrong?

I have to imagine that it suffered from being overly-truncated to fit the 3 hour constraint. To add insult to injury, the actual book itself comprises only approx. 2:20. The remaining 40 minutes are an afterward added (maybe for the paperback release?) that did little to add to/explain the content itself.

I've subsequently borrowed the printed book from the library to fill-in what was missing and hae found it much more elucidating. As it stands, I would only recommend this if you were considering reading the full book and were not sure if you wanted to commit the time to it.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Awesome!!!

This is an incredible book and narrated by the author whom has a beautiful voice and adds feeling to the words. I was enthrawled.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting topic, but beautiful voice??

I found the topic and the examples to be mostly quite interesting but having just listened to Freakonomics, I found the latter's analyses more compelling and *definitely* preferred Stephen Dubner's voice. I'm interested to read Blink for content, but a little hesitant for speaking style. Maybe that's one for good ol' print.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Clever premise, zero insight

Compared to similar, better researched and more tightly written and argued books like "Freakanomics" or "The Wisdom of Crowds," this book comes off as something that a self-satisfied Ivy League student might write as his thesis paper. There are a lot of interesting ideas and facts, but other than some highly contrived arguments Gladwell half-heartedly tries to work in, there simply isn't much tying them to the central thesis.

In short, the book is just a bunch of disjointed anecdotal examples of "tipping points" which Gladwell tries to buttress with a lot of interesting and tangential information, presumably hoping the reader be entertained enough to fail to notice that he's not actually proving his point in any substantial way. Apparently, he's been very successful at this, but it doesn't change the fact that the "Tipping Point" has plenty to SHOW, but pretty much nothing to SAY.

And the book simply ignores or dismisses in a sentence or two the broad social trends that were going on during specific "epidemics" that were probably as responsible for them as the narrow and inaccurate reasons Gladwell gives. For example, does anyone actually think that if extreme sports hadn't exploded in the 1990's Airwalk would have succeeded through clever advertising? Of course not. Yet Gladwell would have one believe that clever advertising taking advantage of "social innovators" and "mavens" were singlehandedly responsible for Airwalk's success. And "Freakonomics'" explanation for why crime in New York dropped is a LOT more compelling (and statistically disproves) Gladwell's argument that the NYC authorities successfully engineered an "anti-crime epidemic."

On the whole, this is the second glib, insubstantial and overrated book by Gladwell I've listened to, which seems like plenty.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating insights in a short book

Normally I steer clear of abridgments, but this was an excellent way to spend five hours. I'm not sure how much longer an unabridged version would have been, but I felt the argument of this book proceeded very logically and was adequately developed and supported by the factual examples.

That argument is essentially this: that many social trends and phenomena follow the same basic pattern as epidemics; that they follow the same pattern because they are caused and sustained in much the same way; that the difference between trends that get past the "tipping point" and those that do not may often be one or more very small factors; and that if one wants to create any sort of social trend (whether that be buying a product or committing fewer crimes), it is important to attend to such very small factors.

The book is anecdotal, and for all I know there may be respected social scientists who think Gladwell is a rank amateur who is dabbling beyond his depth. But for my part, I think Gladwell is a perspicacious observer whose insights here are original, interesting, and even useful.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

The Power of Numbers!

Wow... What a great read. Malcom Gladwell really captures the spirit of human connections and the human need to feel part of something. A definate must read for anyone interested in looking at what moves people and how a small event can result in large response.

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3 people found this helpful