Well-written post and thanks for linking to Startup Review. I have been giving a lot of thought to this question of virality and will be writing an article on the topic in the next couple weeks. One of the main points that I will make is that for something to be viral, its core function must be communication. Information-oriented services are not viral. The term viral is tossed around too loosely in my opinion. Good Internet products can have word of mouth marketing, but that is different than viral marketing.

I agree with most of the points you make above. Mainstream PR is in my opinion a crucial element to achieving scale. Initial distribution can greatly increase the probability of success, but some companies didn’t need it to be successful, mainly because they were highly viral services. A few examples of this are Facebook, Hotornot, and Xfire.

Well-written post and thanks for linking to Startup Review. I have been giving a lot of thought to this question of virality and will be writing an article on the topic in the next couple weeks. One of the main points that I will make is that for something to be viral, its core function must be communication. Information-oriented services are not viral. The term viral is tossed around too loosely in my opinion. Good Internet products can have word of mouth marketing, but that is different than viral marketing.

I agree with most of the points you make above. Mainstream PR is in my opinion a crucial element to achieving scale. Initial distribution can greatly increase the probability of success, but some companies didn’t need it to be successful, mainly because they were highly viral services. A few examples of this are Facebook, Hotornot, and Xfire.