Heh. You’ve identified the fundamental problem: lack of rigor when identifying “trends”. If anyone’s going to publish a trend story, I’d like to see some statistical confirmation that it is a trend. If not, no story. If it is, there’s a 99% chance I still don’t want to see it as a story, because trend stories are a bit like survey stories. You’re either telling me something I already know, or telling me about what other people are doing and I don’t care. Very occasionally a trend story works but only if (a) it’s a real phenomenon and (b) there is something interesting to be said about it.

Comment by pyker — Tue, 091006 @ 090536UTC