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Five Types of Virality

news.greylock.com

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Re: Five Types of Virality

#11

Post by bitshiffed »

jitl wrote: post #3

I'm always amused when I see an article like this at the top of Hacker News. I come here for interesting technical articles and discussion on computer science topics, not this sort-of marketing noise^H^H^H^H^H advice targeted at "entrepreneurs". I wonder how much overlap there is between upvoters of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12539522 (L4 microkernels...) and this article (Five Types of Virality). It would…

I followed the link, having misread it as "File Types of Virality" and thinking it was something about file formats, relating to hosting viruses.

Re: Five Types of Virality

#12

Post by ismdubey »

j03m1 wrote: post #9
jitl wrote: post #3

I'm always amused when I see an article like this at the top of Hacker News. I come here for interesting technical articles and discussion on computer science topics, not this sort-of marketing noise^H^H^H^H^H advice targeted at "entrepreneurs". I wonder how much overlap there is between upvoters of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12539522 (L4 microkernels...) and this article (Five Types of Virality). It would…

When I see posts like this I just assume everyone at [ insert company y ] up voted.

actually, I submitted this post and have nothing to do with Greylock. I am an entrepreneur myself trying to grow my product. Hence, I think about virality all the time. The audience here is also interested in growth as is clear by the upvotes.

Re: Five Types of Virality

#13

Post by ismdubey »

Bartweiss wrote: post #8
mooneater wrote: post #4

Thinking deeply about virality is probably worthwhile, though Im not sure I agree with the breakdown here. "Incentivized" is an optional attribute that applies to the other four, not just word of mouth.

This is definitely not a thorough (or deeply useful) investigation of the topic. As I read it, there are three types of transfer identified here and two modifiers. - Word of mouth - Demonstration (intentional or not) - Network effects (N.B. this is a problem as well as an opportunity) And the modifiers: - User incentives (cash-for-shares) - Central sharers (e.g. Let's Plays, celebrities on Instagram) That seems like…

I like the way you broke down things. People at a16Z have some sort of a network effect playbook for different types of Network Effects. I was listening about this in one of their podcasts.

Re: Five Types of Virality

#14

Post by daveguy »

ismdubey wrote: post #12
j03m1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see posts like this I just assume everyone at [ insert company y ] up voted.

actually, I submitted this post and have nothing to do with Greylock. I am an entrepreneur myself trying to grow my product. Hence, I think about virality all the time. The audience here is also interested in growth as is clear by the upvotes.

Just because you submitted it doesn't mean everyone at company y isn't alerting on posts about their company and voting them up.

But I do agree this is an entrepreneurial topic of general interest.

Re: Five Types of Virality

#17

Post by __derek__ »

ismdubey wrote: post #13
Bartweiss wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely not a thorough (or deeply useful) investigation of the topic. As I read it, there are three types of transfer identified here and two modifiers. - Word of mouth - Demonstration (intentional or not) - Network effects (N.B. this is a problem as well as an opportunity) And the modifiers: - User incentives (cash-for-shares) - Central sharers (e.g. Let's Plays, celebrities on Instagram) That seems like…

I like the way you broke down things. People at a16Z have some sort of a network effect playbook for different types of Network Effects. I was listening about this in one of their podcasts.

Here's the episode: "Not all network effects are created equal"[1]

[1]: http://a16z.com/2016/08/01/network-effects-taxonomy/

Re: Five Types of Virality

#18

Post by ismdubey »

daveguy wrote: post #14
ismdubey wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

actually, I submitted this post and have nothing to do with Greylock. I am an entrepreneur myself trying to grow my product. Hence, I think about virality all the time. The audience here is also interested in growth as is clear by the upvotes.

Just because you submitted it doesn't mean everyone at company y isn't alerting on posts about their company and voting them up. But I do agree this is an entrepreneurial topic of general interest.

Theoretically, you might be right. But, I seriously doubt someone at GreyLock would have noticed until it was upvoted enough no of times to be on top.

Re: Five Types of Virality

#19

Post by ci5er »

thedevil wrote: post #5

Anyone have any really good sources to learn to think about virality? I'm getting a few insights reading this (e.g. demonstration virality now seems stupid obvious but I had never thought about it before ), but I'd go a little deeper and have no clue where to start. I've tried several different Google searches but came up with mostly garbage.

First you have to separate out network effects (recently called "the platform stack") from virality. The former (not the one you asked for) is this stuff:

  - https://medium.com/@smitty/what-i-learned-from-100-s-of-hours-studying-platform-businesses-platform-building-basics-part-1-1ae6e75c6cf0

  - https://medium.com/art-marketing/the-platform-stack-c83f9c96e6
Slide #68 here talks about the difference (the whole deck is worth a look-see):

  - http://www.slideshare.net/a16z/network-effects-59206938/68-Whats_the_differenceD_E_F
Some of my clients have found spreadsheet/tutorial/example useful to help them "bring it home":

  - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20121002124206-18876785-how-to-model-viral-growth-the-hybrid-model
There's a slew of charlatans that will want to help you use FB to make things "go viral" (you'll find some of those pitches on SlideShare), but first, once you know what it is, you can begin to sort the wheat from the chaff for yourself...
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