A bit late I know, but I have been thinking over ROFLcon for some time now. This is a very debatable topic. There is no doubt in my mind that everyone who is involved in internet advertising, social media, digital marketing, etc. will have their own opinion on this.
But this interview with some of the leaders in viral internet and some of the most recognized names in online communities will give some nice insight to this question.
At ROFLcon 2010, moot from 4chan, Ben Huh from Cheezburger Network, Jamie Wilkinson and Kenyatta Cheese from Know Your Meme, and Greg Rutter of Youshouldhaveseenthis.com discuss “Mainstreaming the Web”.
Also featured in this clip is Tim Hwang, founder of ROFLcon & Jonah Peretti, founder of BuzzFeed and co-founder of the Huffington Post on this subject.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZmqCxc0BZk[/youtube]
Kenyatta Cheese discusses how all the mediums that we communicate with digitally, the images, videos, etc. are becoming the language which we speak. If you think about some of the new things that have come out recently, specifically, Facebook Open Graph, how true of a statement is this? All you need is a like button and that spreads a link to your entire network and tells them you like something. That is a powerful way of sharing information. Sharing a quick link, with a thumbnail image typically explains it all. The days of descriptions are gone. We want to know immediately, and we want it to be catchy. That is viral marketing is.
“If there is a back story, if you need to contextualize it, its not going to go viral.” (from Moot, the founder of 4chan, in describing what an internet meme is. I think this sums it all up.)
Viral marketing is quick, painless and straight to the point. NO questions asked. Its about impulse.
Next post, I plan on discussing David Weinberger‘s view on the battle between Broadcast Media and YouTube culture.