Going viral, a phrase that in recent years has taken on an entirely new and positive spin, describing the phenomenon of an idea, image or video rapidly spreading across the web. And while marketers and laymen alike have tirelessly tried to ascertain the secret formula to unlocking its guarantee of success or at the very least, recognition, it’s more likely that the process is merely a perfect storm of uncontrollable forces like timing and luck. Still, what are your chances?    
Chris Wilson over at Slate recently explored the possibility of a video reaching 1 million views on YouTube and [...]

As part of its promotion of the Core 2 Duo processor, Intel has released a series of viral videos in China under the slogan: “If You’re Going to Play, Play Big” (玩，就玩大的). One of the more recent videos features a gamer imagining himself using a construction crane to play a massive real-life game of Tetris.

Another viral video in the series plays on the same larger-than-life theme, but this time with the game Puzzle Bobble.

[via Youku Buzz]

The Big Money takes an inside look at Pet Holdings Inc., a Seattle-based startup that serves as the umbrella to online phenoms such as Fail Blog, I Can Has Cheezburger and Engrish Funny.  Although the company didn’t invent these online fads turned institutions, they have monetized them by building a business model based on the marketing of internet memes, either buying up preexisting real estate on the web or developing brand new sites around them. Currently, their budding empire gets nearly 5.5 million page views per day, making it one the most popular networks of sites on the entire web.
At a time [...]

Are ideas literally contagious? It sure seems like it when watching the wildfire spread of memes on the internet. A recent Slate piece shows that the act of “going viral” may be structurally more like its biological counterpart than previously thought. Studying the hyped-up “25 things” meme from Facebook revealed that the spread of the idea was strikingly similar to a virus outbreak,  including mutation and  epidemic progression.
Slate explains:
Since I’m no evolutionary expert, I shipped Slate’s data to Lauren Ancel Meyers, a biology professor at the University of Texas who models the spread of infectious diseases mathematically. Meyers says that [...]

Ad-Land have decided to start an announcement list for advertising virals games, films etc on the web. There are already a few announcement lists out there but they felt they weren’t fulfilling their “adoholic needs”.
The list will allow viral creators worldwide announce their release of a new campaign, where “viral colleagues in the business, ad bloggers, rubbernecked viral addicts, trade press journalists and other web heads are on the list and can stay hip to the latest”.
Ad-Land hope that when the creators of virals not only announce their new gem, but list credits of people involved in it so that [...]