A recent article "Why Ideas And Products Become Contagious: The Jonah Berger Formula" gives the basics:
1) Social Currency drives the car - we love making ourselves look good, make your product or service make people look good for using it and being involved with it.
2) Triggers: if it relates to something else you know or do, it's going to stick
3) Emotion: If it trigger a base need it's going to stick, think Maslow's level 1
4) Public: the more people can add to it, pee on it, make it their own, the better
5) Practical Value: If it's something they can talk about at work & share, it's solid
6) Stories: the more it resonates with a story you can tell and retell the more it sells
More aptly are the specifics of Geoffrey More's Book "Crossing the Chasm" summarized here recognizing the need to focus on the early adopters and the expectations of these groups and the necessary mechanisms for driving further involvement by the standard public - the larger portion of any investors hockey stick and why the only way to achieve that is by continually pumping out new products as artists create painting as detailed in "The Longer Tail"
