Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves

This book is truly fascinating. The book covers the origins, the rise and fall of several dot coms.The author, interestingly, starts with Tupperware, a company that has nothing to do with the internet. Tupperware, however, was the first company to use social groups to sell. All pyramid schemes(Amway, Quickstar), operate using the same mechanisms.Some of the companies covered in the book are: hotmail, flickr, facebook, ebay, myspace, paypal, bebo, netscape, friendster, twitter, more. What's interesting is that all these companies grew virally with no advertising costs(payal was the exception, offering users 10$ to join). Most of them not only grew virally, but could not be displaced by newer companies who had deeper pockets and invested in advertising as well as financial lures. According to the book - once a viral network achieves a viral loop and a point on non displacement it cannot be stopped. That's debatable. Specially considering orkut had a huge user base and was quickly replaced by facebook in almost all countries. Similarly for email, even though yahoo and hotmail had a huge user base, users quickly switched to gmail. Facebook too is now on the email bandwagon. Companies need to stay current and offer fresh services to ensure that users see value.The way I see it, all these social networks will converge at some point. Or will stay separate but feed into the others' user base ensuring that the overall social ecosystem gets more robust.There is an interesting formula in the book related to viral co-efficient. Companies would require a viral co-efficient of over 1 to get into viral growth mode.Viral co-efficient = x*y>1 gives you viral growthEg: If you invite 10 friends and 15% joinViral co-efficient = 10*.15= 1.5 > 1If you invite 10 friends and 5% joinViral co-efficient = 10*.05= 0.5 < 1 and this network will not grow virally.The book is more about history than anything else and doesn't offer any real insight into the future or even the present (considering the book was written in 2009 when facebook was at 200 mill versus 500 mill today). That is a big failing since in terms of insights the book has nothing to offer. The stories keep you hooked and its fascinating to rewind to how some of today's titans started. And that by itself is a really good reason to read this book.

My initial thinking was that this book would provide reasons for the viral spread of something. Rather it turned out to be more about the stories behind products and ideas that gone viral. That still proved very interesting and seems to reinforce the concept that there is no specific 'formula' for what makes something go viral.The book provides some interesting insight into many of the products and services we know well, such as Netscape and EBay, that have grow from humble beginnings into multi billion dollar businesses. The book does contain examples of how viral growth was seeded by things such as the Hotmail email signature tag.What the book probably best illustrates is how simple ideas can catch on and grow beyond the wildest dreams of their inventors. All you need is an idea and then some strategy to allow it to be shared. The Internet now makes such a strategy much easier but is does not however guarantee success by any means.The book is easy to read and is very entertaining. Inside it does contain the reasons why some products go viral but these by by no means can applies to other products. However, the book does demonstrate how very simply ideas, with virtually no formal marketing or advertising can grow astronomically with no investment except for networking people.

What's a social media relationship on Facebook worth? In my case, it's about $90 according to the author of Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves.To illustrate principles in his book, Adam Penenberg, author of Viral Loop provides this tool on Facebook for measuring `viral loop value' in the community. It uses an algorithm that takes into account Facebook's estimated valuation with your level of activity, the number and activity level of your friends, and your "influence."Unlike conventional audience members, users of social networks tend to be committed participants and contributors who create value to the network(s) they frequent. Thus, your value within the community is based on your level of participation.I recommend Penenberg's book. It is a tome dedicated to helping marketers understand implications of the viral coefficient. The viral coefficient can be used to track the growth, popularity and level of engagement. It measures how many new users are attracted by each existing user. And, in the case of social networks, it represents the number of new members each additional member attracts.To read a full review, visit: [...]

If you're like me and you're into Internet Marketing, Social Media or anything related to that, I highly recommend the book Viral Loop by Adam Penenberg.There is a lot of buzz out there about things going "viral" and everyone wants a piece of the action. If you're looking for a how-to book on creating Viral Campaigns, this is not the book you want. However, this book is full of fascinating case studies on how other items have gone viral.To give you an idea of what's covered in this really great read, here's a sampling of the some of the case studies you'll find in it:Netscape and FirefoxeBayHot or NotPayPalIntrigued yet? I figured you were. Adam has a straightforward way of telling a story but also giving you some analytical insights as to why the Viral Loop occurs. This book will give you lots of ideas for your own business as well as some valuable insights into how consumers think when it comes to items like that. Perfect for people you know who are in business or obsessed with the internet (like me).

Questo libro analizza le leve e le regole alle quali bisogna sottostare per rendere un contenuto virale. Must read!

Viral Loop is a must read for young growth hackers who wish to understand more about growth, network effects, point of non-displacement, and ultimate saturation where growth dies. You wanna do growth hacking? Learn what has worked so far in the vitality loops. 😉

This book is really interesting and well worth a read - I had the previous addition and wanted the updated version. The item was delivered on time.

The book is a collection of interesting stories written in a way almost like fiction. So it makes for nice reading.However, if you are looking for getting ideas on how to outdo your competion or even specifc recipes on how to make your online product viral, the book will not help you!

guter Content...interessante Sichtweisen / Ansätze...kann ich weiterempfehlenVielleicht irgendwann auf Deutsch erhältlich. Schließt leider Interessierte aus, die Englisch nicht beherrschen.