DISQUS

leafar · 3 years ago

To follow Nic / Frank analysis of Myspace, I recommand danah Boyd's paper :
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/bo...

Nisan Gabbay · 3 years ago

Hi Nic,

Well-written post and thanks for linking to Startup Review. I have been giving a lot of thought to this question of virality and will be writing an article on the topic in the next couple weeks. One of the main points that I will make is that for something to be viral, its core function must be communication. Information-oriented services are not viral. The term viral is tossed around too loosely in my opinion. Good Internet products can have word of mouth marketing, but that is different than viral marketing.

I agree with most of the points you make above. Mainstream PR is in my opinion a crucial element to achieving scale. Initial distribution can greatly increase the probability of success, but some companies didn't need it to be successful, mainly because they were highly viral services. A few examples of this are Facebook, Hotornot, and Xfire.

alan patrick · 3 years ago

Absolutely......and as with eyeballs in "Web 1.0", this is going to get more and more expensive as hordes of newcomers charge in. There are only so many Social Nets one can belong to.

johnyD · 2 years ago

Good article...I have to say that WAYN.com is really superb site. I found many good friends here and its great to keep in touch with all. Great stuff ;)

Lightning Bug · 1 year ago

Interesting. But marketing new sites with no budget is getting harder and harder and it takes more work to get smaller traffic returns these days as everything is so saturated.