Derek Thompson: Why There’s No Such Thing As ‘Going Viral’
Derek Thompson: Why There’s No Such Thing As ‘Going Viral’
Dan Schawbel
In lecture, we have been discussing a lot of the mechanisms by which a new idea or product may thrive or fail in a society. Some of the concepts introduced include network effects and information cascades. “Network effects” refers to the idea that the more people that adopt an idea or product, the more inherently valuable it becomes, and thus the more successful it may be. Network effects have a lot more influence on product viability than we may think. Furthermore, information cascades help to explain why network effects occur. For instance, if I see that a lot of people are consuming something, like witnessing many people wearing airpods around campus, or seeing a high view count on a YouTube video, I may infer an information-based benefit — that these people know something about what’s good to consume or use that I don’t, and I may benefit from this information by also participating in the consumption. Network effects and information cascades are particularly notable in studying social media, and how things go viral.
The linked Forbes article is an interview with Derek Thompson, senior editor at the Atlantic magazine, who has penned the book Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction. The interview focuses on what it means for things to go viral, and adds useful context and discussion to the above topics. Thompson defines what the phrase “going viral” means in our culture — “that thing got big really quickly, and I’m not sure how”. He notes that the rise of the Internet over the last 25 years has provided ample data on trends, and thus the ability to do research on information cascades. As a result, we can demystify the “and I’m not sure how” clause of that statement.
Thompson notes a few statistics from a study that on millions of Twitter messages from 2012. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, 90% of Twitter messages didn’t diffuse into a broader audience, and 95% clicks came directly from its original source or one degree of separation. Thompson attributes this to the “broadcast” effect–that something goes viral if it is being broadcast. He makes a fascinating parallel that just because 150 million people see an Super Bowl ad, doesn’t mean people consider it viral. But if an article or posts hits the front page of Reddit, people will consider it to have gone viral because it is being broadcast.
Thompson notes a few other things that augment our lecture discussions. First, people gravitate toward “familiar surprises”, which are fresh perspectives on old ideas. This makes sense, as people like to maintain a routine, but like to change things up and break from the routine sometimes. Another relevant point is that even if a new pop song is catchy, that doesn’t mean that it will hit the top of the charts. A lot is weighed on the marketing, distribution, and timing. This is similar to the music lab experiment that we spoke about in lecture. A song may have all of the musical qualities to be successful, or in more general terms, a product may have the qualities to be an innovative product. However, ultimately success is more reliant on seemingly trivial things like view count, which can cause network effects due to information cascades, and determine the success of a product.