Toads and innovation

Toads are one of the most common species in the world. The 2/5/2010 issue of the Science Magazine published an article about traits that have helped them proliferate throughout the continents over a relatively short period of time. Here's a summary table from the paper (click to enlarge):

The second part of the table shows that successful toads are quick to take advantage of temporary favorable weather conditions (e.g. small pools of water); produce a lot of eggs (most of them die later); minimize investment into their offspring.

Let's switch our focus and think about snippets of ideas (idealets) instead of toads. Today's communication environment encourages extremely short messages: twitter, youtube, blogs, and now google buzz. Attention span is getting shorter, competition for attention intensifies. Therefore, just like with toad larvae, producing a lot of idealets that ride hot media events and don't require much effort must be a winning proliferation strategy.
The only problem is: toads don't build cultures and cities that last hundreds of years. They live within an environment that is dealt to them by superior powers. This means that companies creating environments stand to benefit immensely from letting info-toads to reproduce and proliferate. They just need to find the right information taxation formula. Google found one - relevent ads - but there must be others.

tags: diffusion, strategy, infrastructure, niche construction,