The science of going viral (and other observations from a media data scientist)
Ronen Ben-Hador has a background in medical research. So when he started his new role at Sizmek, he was startled to discover that ‘going viral’ wasn’t simply an analogy.
The etymology of when the verb ‘going viral’ was first used is a little vague, but the internet tells me that the Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest citation for the use of viral in the context of ‘involving the rapid spread of information’ was in 1989.
Since then it has entered everyday language, accelerated by the launch of YouTube in 2005, which made the sharing of video content much easier – as did the subsequent launch of social media channels. Consequently, pretty much everyone knows that ‘going viral’ means a piece of content that spreads quickly through the population like a virus. But fewer might realise just how alike an actual virus and a viral piece of content are.
Not really the science of going viral but the science of identifying something as viral after it starts going viral.
If the system you have is scraping the internet to flag virality within a few hours, its pretty interesting that you’ve automated that. Still doesn’t identify the cause though.
How very unscientific of you.
as so….. says… the market is for being able to predict whether something will be viral…. your product is a diagnosis not a prediction. Pretty much the difference between a doctor saying you are likely to get cancer versus you have cancer.
Oh and this algorithm already exists.
It’s called instagram.
Some would call it a pox.