SCI FI Wire has an interesting window into the thought process of the movie industry:

Looking for the next Harry Potter-like franchise, Warner Brothers on July 11 announced that it has acquired the film rights to Septimus Heap, a seven-book series filled with wizards and spells, while Relativity Media unveiled its acquisition of Tunnels, another British children's fantasy series, Variety reported.

You can almost see the gears turning: "7 books, magic, written by a British author: we can't miss!". The same kind of herd following happens in software - why do you think that there's always a "mainstream" set of development languages, and everything else is a niche operation, for instance?

The thing is, just because someone had success with X - a storyline, a software tool, a business plan - doesn't mean that you'll be able to succeed with something that's a close match to it. For one thing, the circumstances that led to the initial success probably aren't the same, even if all the superficial tools are.

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