The nearly simultaneous release of a neuromarketing article, Brain Sells, in TIME Europe, and a neuroeconomics article, Mind Games, in the New Yorker, has generated a considerable amount of blog activity. (See our commentary, TIME Europe Bullish on Neuromarketing and Mind Games: New Yorker on Neuroeconomics.) Much of this activity has been from bloggers other than the “usual suspects” who write often on these topics. The chart to the left shows Technorati’s measure of posting activity for the combined fields; that’s a static snapshot at the time of this post – you can also see a constantly updating chart of posting on Neuromarketing in Blogs.
In general, perhaps because of its thorough coverage of the topic, not to mention US distribution, John Cassidy’s New Yorker article seems to have generate more attention. The Bellows blog thought that Cassidy’s enthusiasm for explaining decision making with neuroscience went a bit too far, commenting, “Life is incredibly complex, and to doubt our decision making capabilities based on our performance in financial markets seems a little?unimaginative.” Two Newtons notes simply that Cassidy’s article is being posted on by “90% of the blogs in the universe” – I guess we’ll have to watch the live Technorati chart to judge that claim. 
Greg Mankiw’s Blog comments on fellow Harvard prof David Laibson, “But maybe Laibson is right that we need to redefine ‘microfoundations’ as starting at the neuron and building up from there.” Victoria Pynchon of the Settle it Now blog calls neuroeconomics “heady stuff” (and then disclaims any punning intention!).
On the neuromarketing front, the Yuticha blog bullishly posts, “Neuro Marketing comes of age,” citing the TIME article as one indicator of the maturation of the field.
It will be interesting to see whether this burst of neuro-interest continues…
