Information Cascade and the Web
Online videos go viral because of information cascade, and in the online era information cascade can happen more easily and faster than ever before. Videos go viral because people share their information, and with mediums such as Facebook they can share a link with 1,000 other people moments after they’ve finished watching it. Once one person shares a video more people watch it and start recommending it to their friends which causes an information cascade. If someone sees that three of their friends have posted about a video they’re going to be intrigued and trust their friends, despite what their outside opinion might be, and watch the video.
Technology also changes the way information cascade works. It used to be that people would have to make their suggestions by word of mouth so it would take a long time for something to gain popularity but now something can be spread around the world in a matter of minutes and can therefore spread over greater groups of people and can gain diverse popularity quickly. As videos like “Charlie Bit Me” demonstrate it’s all a matter of getting a few of the right people to view your content, and if they have enough friends spread about they can make the whole thing go viral. Not only is the web changing what goes viral but it changes how we interact and spread information.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/webhead/2009/07/will_my_video_get_1_million_views_on_youtube.html?from=rss