Ron Paul happened to be King of the Internet during the last presidential election.  He would win survey after survey after survey, and get LOTS of support.  He ended up not doing well as far as electability goes.

Snakes on a Plane was hyped up over the Internet and built a large subculture around the movie, and it got hyped up like crazy.  The box office sales weren't quite up to it.  The internet buzz likely did help its sales, but it just didn't manage to breakthrough saleswise.

In light of this, anyone want to propose a reduction factor of noise to results, based on these past two examples?  Like, how much off should a title be knocked down based on buzz on forums like this?  The Internet does make objects appear larger than they actually are.

Don't forget Cloverfield.

Didn't Cloverfield happen to be a top box office movie?  Snakes on the Planes didn't do that.  And Ron Paul certainly didn't (although he did start a political movement that has some traction as a result).  Maybe Cloverfield is the high end of what Internet buzz can do, and over time it get larger.  But now?

This is an interesting question. I wish there was a formula that could be used to distinguish realistic possibility from deceitful hype.

___ WILL BE HUGE

The internet allows very small groups of likeminded people to communicate over vast distances which often results in an echo-chamber effect ...

Yeah, but it was an f'ing awful movie.

Although the internet didn't cause me to get excited for it, it was the pre-transformers trailer...

*>*>Edit - Oh yeah, i'm attempting to avoid hype about The Conduit cuz i'm worried it won't be that great :(

The internet is a dangerous thing indeed.

Objects in mirror are larger then they appear.

And if you stay in the middle of it, then you think things are bigger than they actually are.  Like, on here, Killzone 2 is getting likely far too much hype.  On basketball forum I have been on, you see a certain player made out more than it is.  And the Ron Paul campaign ended up raising far more money than votes, because people got sucked into the echo chamber.  I am just curious how much the echo-chamber effect is louder than what is actually out there or what will actuall happen.  Not sure it is easy to get this, but a decent estimate of this would be able to result in better predicting of sales.

I like Cloverfield
I think it was awesome and quiet realistic compare to other monster movies
Snakes on a plane in the other hand SUCKED