The Impact of Social Media and Web 2.0
Tastemakers - Participation - Unexpectedness
The video above, taken from TED, explains how videos go viral on the internet. Kevin Allocca states it is due to 3 factors, Tastemakers, participation, and unexpectedness.
Tastemakers - Famous people that tweet/share on social media to lots of other followers that influence the video to be seen. If your favourite celebrity tweets about how funny they found a video, the chances are you will the watch the video just to see what they found funny. If a celebrity did this and had millions of followers, the video could go viral in a matter of hours, down to the fact that celebrities can share links in real-time online.
Participation - This is where audience members watch the video, and then make there own 'parody' themselves. This also includes blogs writing about the video, in order to get people to watch the music video. It is usually the extremes that encourage people to watch a video, whether it be really good, or extraordinarily bad. The 10,000 parodies of 'Friday' allowed the video to go global, not necessarily because the video was very good, but because people found it funny, and wanted to share that with other people.
Unexpectedness - Usually, if someone told you to watch a video that was completely out of the ordinary, for example, the man protesting about the bike lane, you would be uninterested, but curious as to why someone would want you to see it. What happens in the video is completely unexpected, which makes the video funny, but also gets his point across too.
By having either tastemakers share your video, people making parodies about your video, or having that unexpected element that makes someone question what is going on, videos can be made viral from someone uploading just a single piece of footage onto the web.
As Kevin Allocca stated, 'over 48hrs of video is uploaded within a single minute on Youtube', this shows how far the online age has changed from web 1.0 to 2.0. Anyone can upload, and anyone can view, meaning that anyone has the potential to make a viral video, and become famous through the internet, even without meaning to.
Tastemakers - Famous people that tweet/share on social media to lots of other followers that influence the video to be seen. If your favourite celebrity tweets about how funny they found a video, the chances are you will the watch the video just to see what they found funny. If a celebrity did this and had millions of followers, the video could go viral in a matter of hours, down to the fact that celebrities can share links in real-time online.
Participation - This is where audience members watch the video, and then make there own 'parody' themselves. This also includes blogs writing about the video, in order to get people to watch the music video. It is usually the extremes that encourage people to watch a video, whether it be really good, or extraordinarily bad. The 10,000 parodies of 'Friday' allowed the video to go global, not necessarily because the video was very good, but because people found it funny, and wanted to share that with other people.
Unexpectedness - Usually, if someone told you to watch a video that was completely out of the ordinary, for example, the man protesting about the bike lane, you would be uninterested, but curious as to why someone would want you to see it. What happens in the video is completely unexpected, which makes the video funny, but also gets his point across too.
By having either tastemakers share your video, people making parodies about your video, or having that unexpected element that makes someone question what is going on, videos can be made viral from someone uploading just a single piece of footage onto the web.
As Kevin Allocca stated, 'over 48hrs of video is uploaded within a single minute on Youtube', this shows how far the online age has changed from web 1.0 to 2.0. Anyone can upload, and anyone can view, meaning that anyone has the potential to make a viral video, and become famous through the internet, even without meaning to.