Blogging provides a great forum for watching the effects of viral marketing.
An online advertising approach that functions somewhat like word-of-mouth. The “viral” refers to how quickly it propagates, but its purpose is not to cause damage like a computer virus, but to make an offer available to the masses. The ad is disseminated via links in e-mail, blogs and Web sites that all point to some service or product people might want, whether free or paid. (http://www.answers.com/viral%20marketing)
I find the viral aspect of this to be fascinating. A short time ago I blogged about Visual DNA. I had seen it over at Mark’s place and found it to be interesting. In a relatively short time a number of my readers had their own posts about it. That was about a week ago.
Since then I have seen it on a hundred different blogs. I am fairly confident that it was on a hundred blogs long before I stumbled upon it. Of course I’d like to say that I was among the first to find it, but I doubt that.
Memes are like that too. There are a million different versions that circulate. You have the A-Z, the name your top 5 movies/vacations/books/CDs and a host of others.
I suppose that part of what I find so fascinating about this is that thanks to the Net these are experiences that millions of people around the world can share in. I am not sure I’ll ever reach a point where I am not somewhat amazed by just how small the world has become.
Yes, it is small really, isn’t it? We do share more than we realize. I think that ‘6 degrees of separation’ is becoming less, too, or at least staying the same in a world of increasing population and internet access. Nice post.