viral

Susan Boyle bigger online than Bush, Obama, Fey

I know there will be very many among you who, inspired and never satiated by the YouTube video of Susan Boyle, wonder whether this is the most popular viral video of all time.

It is my duty to bring you an answer (as well as a Boyle interview with Scottish television that has already enjoyed more than 1 million views).

Visible Measures, a company that clutches the pulse of the online audience and refuses to let go, has identified more than 200 unique videos of Boyle's performance. According to Visible Measures, the combined figures seem to have exceeded the … Read more

The 'Twitter Effect': Possibilities and limits

Is there a "Twitter Effect," by which the rapid spread of information through the microblogging service can crush a Web site with traffic? As I see it, the answer is yes, but it's not as simple as it might appear at first blush.

First, the background: Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore, whose Twitter postings more than 52,000 people follow, concluded his February 2 tweet mentioning that a blog post on "how to use Twitter to find your next job" took that site down with an inundation of traffic. He suggested calling the phenomenon the Mashable Effect. … Read more

Will viralness of tirade harm Christian Bale's career?

Christian Bale is about to learn the power of the Internet.

Bale, who starred as Batman in The Dark Knight and in the western 3:10 to Yuma, apparently suffered a complete meltdown last summer on the set of Terminator Salvation, screaming profanities at the picture's director of photography.

An audio recording of the tirade has gone viral and is rapidly spreading on the Web. According to reports, it is Bale's voice lashing out at the DP for walking into his line of sight during filming. (Warning, the tirade is profanity-filled and the audio is very clear--use headphones). … Read more

Lenovo's lame product video

A colleague sent me this video Lenovo made and published to its official blog. My jaw dropped. Not because the content is particularly shocking or offensive, but because of how incredibly misplaced and lame it is as a Lenovo ad.

If anything, it makes clear one thing: Lenovo's talents lie in selling huge volumes of ThinkPads to business customers, and notably not in making smart, hip Internet video.

In the video, a guy recounts to his male co-worker a late-night work session with their female colleague the night before. While he and the girl are working, he starts describing … Read more

Fake Facebook college class groups uncovered

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

We may be about to see the latest frontier of viral marketing--fake students starting groups for the incoming class of 2013 in the name of data collection.

Brad Ward, a recruitment specialist at Butler University, outlined the details on his blog. He became suspicious after talking to a colleague at Winthrop University. Here are the common links:

Class of 2013 groups are being started at a bunch of universities. The people that start the groups aren't registered at those schools. Those same names--Patrick Kelly, Justin Gaither, James Gaither among … Read more

New video: 'Guitar Hero' pro raises the 'Bike Hero' bar

If you're any kind of Internet viral video junkie--you know who you are--then last week you smirked at the Bike Hero video. In case you somehow missed it, Bike Hero is a video of a guy on a bike playing Guitar Hero with markers left on the pavement. Sadly, we soon found out it was a viral video put together by Activision's new creative team.

However, a challenger has appeared! By mounting a TV in the back of a car and using a wireless Guitar Hero controller, ex-Seattleite and competitive Guitar Hero player Freddy Wong posted a video … Read more

When rap, physics, and fame collide

You can put Kate McAlpine in a giant particle accelerator 300 feet underground. You can even put her in a rap video. Just don't put her in a box.

That's a tenet the 23-year-old Michigan native--who recently climbed the YouTube charts with a rap video on the Large Hadron Collider--embraced long ago in choosing a career as a science writer. She tips the hat to her dad, who was annoyed by the results of her career aptitude test in high school that sought to place her in a particular field.

"They're trying to put you … Read more

Brian Solis: 'There is no viral marketing'

NEW YORK--Blogger and new-media publicist Brian Solis struck down one of the biggest marketing buzz terms of the past few years in a panel on Wednesday morning at the Web 2.0 Expo here.

"There is no 'viral marketing' per se," Solis said, referring to the marketing trend of creating a catchy online gimmick and hoping it will spread like the latest cat-does-something-funny video on YouTube. Rather, Solis explained, it's the people who make it viral. Getting a grip on online marketing is an ongoing strategy, he said. "This isn't a campaign. This is something … Read more

Making viral distribution more viral

In a post that is perfectly applicable to open source in its pithy conclusion, ReadWriteWeb suggests that vendors look beyond "viral" to ensure a product's success:

It's been said over and over again, but maybe one more time would help: "viral" can be encouraged, it can be prayed for, but it can't be engineered. Your only hope is to create engaging, compelling content, and tell a terrific story... and then hope.

Yes. Yes. Yes. In open source, the license is simply a start. An open-source license, however, is no guarantee of success. It'… Read more