What’s Fresh?

The whole concept of viral marketing can be a bit vague, but when you stumble across something that has that “it’ quality, it’s obvious. One of my favorite videos on YouTube, Charlie Bit My Finger, has just shy of 46 million views. That is a lot of hits even if you are a major brand.

After watching this video for the upteinth time, I started to wonder about what makes this video made it so popular? Why do users pass it along to their friends?

Here is why I think this viral video campaign is effective:

1. Hilarious. To make a recommendation, the content needs to be worth the hype. This is worthy.

2. Genuine. You can literally see the pain on the older brother’s face

3. Quotable. After recieving sideways glances when I blurt out “That really hurt Charlie” in a British accent, I feel the need to show nonbelievers what I am referencing. Thus creating a new crop of Charlie lovers.

4. Novel. Viral videos need to be unique and something you don’t see everyday.

What are some other criteria for creating a viral online video campaign?

Any activity that can be deemed as spam or involves impersonation will likely get your twitter account shut off.  Keep in mind that twitter can be used for commercial and promotion uses, but the line has now been drawn.

I would imagine that if you are within the ages of 14-35 you have likely heard this phrase or one similar to it “It isn’t official til its on Facebook.”  There is something about the relationship status section of a person’s Facebook profile that seems to offer as much insight as a large diamond on the left hand.  It is strange, but many things can be learned from this simple piece of the profile.   The information offered here is becoming a custom for the Facebook Gen like being pinned was for our parents.

I know many people (myself included) who have learned about engagements, engagement break-offs, marriages, divorces, new significant others, break-ups, and the sexual orientation of their “friends” all through this arena.  There is also the mysterious non-inclusion of the relationship status.  This can be interpreted in various ways from “I don’t want other people to know about the person I am seeing” to “I am single but don’t want people to know that” to “I am a swinger” to ‘We are having problems but it is not officially over yet” to “It’s personal and no bodies business.”

The best part about the relationship status on Facebook is the conversations it spurs. Emails to friends saying “Did you see who he is dating now?” or “They got engaged?”  It offered endless options for gossip driven fodder.

So what does this new “almost tradition” mean about the importance of social networking to our actual lives?  Does it seem strange that so much merit and thought is put into something that may be deemed trivial?

In elementary school whenever I was working on a research paper my teachers always warned me to limited the use Internet sources because they were not credible. With distain they said, “Anyone can just write something on the Internet.”

When I was in college, teachers permitted us to use up to 5 Internet sources on our term papers. While they allowed us more freedom to use websites, professors still gave priority to .org or .net and other non-.com top level domains. This prejudice towards most of the World Wide Web made finding sources difficult, and as a result I had to resort to the tried and true Dewey Decimal system at the library.

Is there ever going to be a point where Internet sources are just as credible as published articles? Are we already here?

I have noticed a slight evolution and acknowledgement of the Internet as a information source, but I would still expect preference given to published documents because (in theory) there is a greater barrier of entry. Is this right? Should published works be given more authority simply because they are bound and tangible?

For anyone out there who is not attending SES this year, do not fear….here is your go to list of things to do instead:

1. Grab a glue stick and go ahead and make that Matt Cutts through the years collage you have been dreaming of.

2. Put a tweetscan on SES and follow (aka stalk) any person mentioning it and send them @ messages that talk about their mom.

3. Add (if they aren’t there already)  the SES and the Top Rank blogs to your RSS and check them every 36.2 seconds in an alternating fashion.

4. Take solace in not having to choose between the Internet Marketer’s Charity Party and……the Season 4 premier of THE HILLS!  Go Team LC!  Wooooo!

5.  Start your own Search Conference where the Keynote speakers include your 3 cats and a cleverly fashioned sock puppet.

6. Develop your own search engine claiming to be a “Google Killer“….wait that happened a few weeks back….what was it’s name again?

and last but not least

7.  Buy yourself a lanyard so you can wear a name tag around the office while introducing yourself to coworkers as “the next big thing.”

For everyone who is attending SES next week, try not to be too jealous of all this cool stuff you will be missing out on….We know it’s gonna be hard, but you have to try.

Terrible puns aside, Sunday’s New York Times explored an important question: Is Google a Media Company? It’s a topic I’ve blogged before on Search Engine Journal.

The distinction between being a search company and a media company - that is, one that hosts content rather than simply helping searchers find it - is an important one, especially for Google, which continues to insist that organizing the world’s information is its singular mission.

A few weeks ago, Google finally unveiled Knol - a Wikipedia competitor (though Google bristles at this comparison) where Internet users write “knols,” or articles, on topics they know well. Unlike Wikipedia, however, the authors of Knols are put front and center, and those authors have exclusive editorial control over their articles.

Though Google strenuously denies that Knols get any rankings boost simply for being a Google property, Knol articles are already ranking well in Google for numerous queries. Conspiracy theories are sure to abound.

Is Google abandoning their singular commitment to search, tempted by the money to be made by being in the content business? In a way, they already have. Exhibit A: YouTube. Exhibit B: Knol.

Yesterday was a mouse lifting weights…today a high diving pig… I wonder what tomorrow will bring?  I vote a hippopotamus on a uneven bars.

Paris Hilton memorized (and yes she did memorize) a 30 second script to accomplish something that many internet marketing firms can only dream of doing.  The video (just on funnyordie.com) has had over 5 million views since it was posted yesterday.  Keep in mind that doesn’t factor in the press it received on every news and celebrity television program imaginable.  The video has the perfect ratio….Humor + Irony + Politics - Clothing + Impeccable timing = A big fat viral win.