2. In this session I‟d like to look at one of the emergent trends coming out of the
tech space. This session is going to be considering some of the ways in which
brands and companies have tried to engage with users in order to establish
themselves.
3. 1 3
2 4
In (1) I‟ll look at the emergence of „virality‟ in recent tech success stories. In (2)
I‟ll draw on a specific example of a viral business. In (3) I‟ll look at some of the
risks involved with social media before looking at why certain videos go viral in
(4)
4. 1 3
2 4
I want to illustrate section (1) by drawing on an idea coined recently by Adam
Penenberg, something he calls a viral loop
5. 5
„Viral expansion loops‟
Adam L. Penenberg (2009) identified a number of successful organisations who
incorporated virality into their functionality so that each user begets another
user.
7. 7
The value of your social network?
Penenberg‟s book has a Facebook application that measures the value of your
social network, by working out how well connected you are. A case of you are
what you share, measured in dollars. A viral tool to spread his message (ie.
“buy my book”) across the popular network
8. 8
The value of your social network?
Oh, and there‟s also an iPhone app. But it‟s not available in the UK…
“It just goes to show that marketing a book ain't what it used to be” (Penenberg,
2009)
11. From a Google perspective, you're not the
customer. The ad service buyer is the
customer. You're the commodity. By
making you a more attractive commodity,
i.e. by making sure to only serve you an
ad if you are in the target population for it,
they are making the ads pay better for
their customers, and they can reap a
large part of the difference to their
competitors, the other ad services
- Liorean, 2004
12. Perhaps because you're not the
customer any more. You're simply a
"resource" to be managed for profit …
Who is the customer? Not you, whose
life is reduced to someone else's
salable, searchable, investigatable
data. The customer is everyone who
wishes to own a piece of your life.
- Claire Woolfe, 1999
13. 13
“Viral strategies aren‟t strictly for businesses. They are also seeping into other
arenas – like politics. And no one was more successful in imprinting a viral loop
into a campaign than Barack Obama” (Penenberg, 2009: 14). Obama raised
$55 million online by Feb 2008 without attending a single fundraiser
14. 14
“One of my fundamental beliefs from my days as a community organizer is that
real change comes from the bottom up … And there‟s no more powerful tool for
grassroots organizing than the Internet” (Wired, 2009). my.BarackObama.com
(aka “MyBo”) was the technological driver of that change.
15. 1 3
2 4
Now in section (2), still drawing on Penenberg, I‟ll explain how a viral success
story emerged using Am I Hot Or Not? as an example of a organisation which
took advantage of a socially orientated growth strategy.
16. 16
Am I Hot or Not?
In October 2000, James Hong and Jim Young were discussing a woman that
Young described as the „perfect 10‟. They had the idea of applying a metric to
people‟s looks by getting people to vote on pictures in order to establish a
17. 17
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
✓
Most people are a….?
18. 18
Am I Hot or Not? Day 1
October 9th: Hong emailed 42 people the site link. He went to a nearby software
call centre (TellMe) and mentioned it to an officer worker there. Within 10 mins
the IP address for TellMe was logged and it multiplied as officer workers shared
the link
19. 19
Am I Hot or Not? Day 1
By the end of the day the site had received 37,000 unique views while 200
photos had been uploaded
20. 20
Hot or Not? Day 2
100,000+ unique visitors. Hong estimated the cost for bandwidth at the present
rate of growth to be $150,000 per year. Popularity came with a real cost as
people passed on the site address to their friends
21. 21
Am I Hot or Not? Day 3
Salon.com reporter Janelle Brown called in a story based on the site‟s success
after a venture capitalists passed on a viral email with a link. It was described
as„nothing more than a virtual meat market‟yet„indescribably horrible … and yet
utterly addictive‟
22. 22
Scalability
In order to offset costs decided to host the photos on Yahoo‟s Geocities and the
site on a cheap 400-mghz Celeron PC under a desk in Berkeley. By 5am the
server had been down for 2 hours. The Dean of the engineering department
complained the traffic was pulling the entire network down. They were
struggling to stay in control of their rapid growth
23. 23
Lots of media attention, but still no plan for monetisation. They were getting
more notoriety and more traffic. By day 8 the site was getting 1.8 million page
views per day. Agreed a deal with Rackspace servers who wanted to boost their
presence/reputation
24. 24
Within 6 weeks the site had 3 million page views, was hosting 3000 photos.
However, there was still no clear funding model. The site predated Google‟s
AdSense service for automated advertisements.
25. 25
The site faced a number of problems as it grew and funding was being sought.
Several users were uploading pornographic content that wouldn‟t sit well with
potential advertisers. Initially Hong‟s parents moderated images but they soon
turned to the community to keep the service free of shocking images
26. 26
Within 2 months the site had counted 7 million page views per day making it
one of the top 25 domains online. They had collected 130,000 photos and had
generated $100,000 in ad revenue
27. 27
The site received Cease & Desist letter from racier Am I Hot site after Howard
Stern mispronounced the name on air. They changed the name to Hot or Not.
The dot-com bubble burst meant that ad revenue dried up
28. 28
Meet Me?
The best way to take advantage of all their regular users was to give them the
option of meeting up. By April 2001 they introduced a $6 per month fee for the
functionality which generated $25,000 in revenue by the end of the first month
($60,000 by year end)
30. 30
Hot or Not? Definitely Hot
The pair rejected a $2m offer from search engine Lycos. By 2004 the site was
generating $4m. In July 2006 the site registered its 13th billionth vote and was
the third most popular dating site on the Internet. By 2008 they sold it for $20m.
33. Uploaded to Vimeo 20th Feb 2012. Uploaded to YouTube 2 March
2012.
As of 29th March 2012 each site has had 17.7 million and 85.9
34. 17th March :Jason Russell of Invisible Children is detained by
police for public nudity , making sexual gestures
35. 35
„Viral expansion loops‟
Recap: Penenberg (2009) identified a number of successful organisations who
incorporated virality into their functionality so that each user begets another
user. An effective social strategy in which a brand‟s proposition can be easily
disseminated is key, but not everyone gets that right.
36. 1 3
2 4
In section (3) I‟ll look at how putting social media at the forefront can be a risky
strategy for some organisations, despite the advantages that can come with
being well known.
37. 37
Play video
Not all brands benefit from the social strategies of other companies as
Kryptonite found out when their expensive bicycle locks found themselves the
subject of some unwanted attention
38. 38
Play video
When Nestle decided to embrace the power of social media it found itself at the
centre of an argument with its fans – namely it decided to police the use of its logo
across Facebook. The reason Nestle were so sensitive to their logo‟s appropriation
by fans, failing to see this as a compliment, was the video Greenpeace made about
39. 39
Play video
When Andrey Ternovskiy created Chatroulette so strangers could meet other
random strangers online it quickly became a hot topic of conversation amongst
the tech savvy. When a piano player named Merton record his encounters with
strangers and share that on YouTube the service became even more infamous
picking up 8+ million views
40. 40
Play video
It even spawned a series of imitators including a recreation of the original by
professional musician Ben Folds live at a gig in front of an audience in
Charlotte, North Carolina
41. 1 3
2 4
In this final section (4) I‟ll look at the key factors behind a number of recent
successful viral videos
42. Web video (powered by Google for free!) has given any one of the us the
chance to be famous by giving us the power to get our messages across.
43. 72+ hours of video uploaded every minute!
3 hours of video every minute from mobile
devices
< TINY tiny tiny % of videos have 1 million+
views
Web video (powered by Google for free!) has given any one of the us the
chance to be famous by giving us the power to get our messages across. But
how can we be successful against such odds? What are the key factors in
securing success in a crowded space?
50. This video had been around a while before it‟s viral success. Originally
uploaded in early February 2011, but saw a spike in traffic around mid-March.
Why? Well, it was Friday, but a group of influential tastemakers shared this with
a wider group of friends (eg Tosh.O, Michael J. Nelson from MST tweeted about
it, bloggers, etc) and a community grew up around this inside joke.
56. Cats even watched other cats watching other cats watching this video…
57. What‟s significant is that the original video inspired a number of creative spin-
offs. There were many different remixes with international themes. A mash-up
community emerged off the back of a silly joke, but what‟s crucial was that
anyone cold participate in it.
59. Who could have predicated any of this? Nobody. But the ability to share
something quickly, for it to gain traction in noticeable ways, before being
amplified throughout communities looking for unexpected things. These
elements are key to the success of viral media.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66. 66
Social
One of the key aspects of features of viral success stories is the emphasis
being placed on their social dimensions. By enabling products to be easily
shared, embedded or passed on, they take advantage of the human drive for
sociability.
67. There are, of course, dangers associated with this new found power to share,
remix and recirculate digital content. Just ask Jessi Slaughter or Star Wars
Kid… Digital technology and the internet are powerful tools and with power
68. 68
• # - C!..., 2010, Share
• # - @Hella, 2008, Obama
• # - Sergio Vaiani, 2009, Scale Stairs
• # - Mike Zienowicz, 2007, Joe
• # - MissNatalie, 2008, Miss Natalie’s Growth Chart
• # - GDS Infographics, 2010, The Year the Dot-Com Bubble Burst
• # - Phil Hatchard, 2010, Sketchbook 2: Internet Dating
• # - kurtxia, 2008, Space invaders
• # - bitchcakesny, 2008, Weight Watchers Awards
• # - Jun Acullador, 2007, Gulf Air
• # - plien, 2009, Z4 dash
• # - DORONKO, 2010, NIKE +iPod
• # – nan palmero, 2010, Foursquare Pins and Tattoos SXSW 2010
• # - yoyolabellut, 2010, Space Invader @ Paris (France)
• # - paulszym, 2010, Step 10 – Place the 5mm Sensor for soldering
• # - Nina Leen (LIFE), 1964, B F Skinner training a rat
• # - yoyolabellut, 2010, Space Invader @ Paris (France)
• # - A. Diez Herrero, 2007, creative commons -Franz Patzig-
All attempts made to attribute sources but if I‟m missed one, get in touch please
Editor's Notes
On the 5, PHL_On_NAN posts a remix (v2), gaining 300,000 views within 24 hours, and prompting further parodies shortly after.
On Feb. 7, YouTuberhiimrawn uploaded a version titled "Harlem Shake v3 (office edition)" featuring the staff of online video production company Maker Studios. The video becomes is a hit, amassing more than 7.4 million views over the following week, and inspiring a number of contributions from well-known Internet companies, including BuzzFeed, CollegeHumor, Vimeo and Facebook.
Here's a graph that shows retweets during the first week, as the meme was being established. We can identify dominant profiles who helped make the videos visible on Twitter, key information brokers. Each node represents a Twitter user, and the larger a node, the more Retweets that user generated when posting to the meme. The lighter colored participated earlier, hence we see @baauer, @dipio and @maddecent very early on, posting to Twitter and accruing Retweets. On the bottom right region, we identify influential YouTubers who were key to passing on the meme, such as @kingsleyyy, @KSIOlajidebt, @ConnorFranta, and @Jenna_Marbles. Note the general size of these profiles versus @StephenAtHome (Colbert) or even @YouTube. These influential YouTubers clearly played a prominent role in generating buzz across Twitter, much more than significantly larger accounts such as Stephen Colbert's or YouTube itself.Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gilad-lotan/the-harlem-shake_b_2804799.html
In this case we see a clear network of influential YouTubers across the U.S. and the U.K. combined with a dense cluster of musicians and DJs who helped make this meme incredibly visible. We also see how it very quickly spread around the world, with dense contingents in Jamaica, South Africa, Brazil, France and the Netherlands.Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gilad-lotan/the-harlem-shake_b_2804799.html
Students protest after school principal suspended for allowing 'indecent' dance video to be filmed on premiseshttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/07/tunisia-harlem-shake