Viral marketing - what it misses
Viral marketers work on the premise that the diffusion of an idea is like that of a disease. Though sometimes useful, this metaphor misses at least four important points.
The first is that epidemics are really ever-so complicated, not easily modelled or copied. Disease is always multi-causal, some factors weight heavily, some slightly, some important only sometimes, some factors rarely or never — but can have high impact.
As well as underestimating the complexity of epidemics, viral marketeers sometimes do not recognise four qualitative differences between the spread of a disease and that of an idea
First, an individual is much more likely to be 'infected' by an idea or product they have never had direct contact with, providing a friend or influencer has been exposed to it.
Secondly, the success of an innovation requires a trade-off between local reinforcement (you believe the idea/product is good through endorsement) and global connectivity, as well as the local connectivity disease requires.
The next two points are to do with the geometry of networks, one only evident in social networks, the other evident in both social and bio-ecological networks.
So . . . thirdly, unlike disease, percolation of an idea can be prevented because the network is very well-connected. Some networks clog when overloaded with information; e.g. too many opinions, spam on the Internet, traffic congestion.
Finally, in both social and bio-ecological networks is the outcome of networks is the creation of diversity engines. As in biological systems, industries are in symbiosis with each others, as well as in competition. Moreover, many highly dynamic complex systems interact as quickly as ideas take hold. Very rapid recursion is therefore inevitable, generating ever more diversity. This frees, as all technology does, tomorrow's engineers and imagineers - and consumers - from today's constraints.
Youtube: Radio 4 Today challenged viral marketeers (see above) to demonstrate the potency of their kind of marketing. Broadcast on 11th March 2009, this witty spoof mini-documentary, empty of real content, has not proved highly contagious.