Viking Adult, ISBN 978-0670020843
, USA, 2009, English
Bill Wasik makes internet experiments on viral culture. He organized the first (pointless) flash mob in New York, and went on with other effective strategies, exploiting online trust and community building techniques. It’s the good old meme resurgence in the times of social networking, tested through a scientific procedure (hypothesis, thesis, experiment) taking into account all the (short) attention span premises. Wasik is able to “inseminate” a information wave and, even more importantly, is able to surf it masterfully. Being a professional journalist he creates his information seeds as “nanostories.” In this vain he established a blog which aimed to stop a “breakout” music band, teaming up with Jonah Peretti in order to make a pop up conservative version of the New York Times headlines, embodying virtual-volunteer brands-evangelists, and creating a blog detailing negative information concerning the US Presidential candidates in 2008. He proves that the attention paid by online users is a “spike” graph pattern, with a sudden peak followed by a quick decline. He relates the different experiments in a first person account that adds an involving touch, is often irreverent and sometime plain hilarious. This book is a chance to learn about viral marketing professionals like the (real) Word of Mouth Marketing Association and Viral Factory viral ad agency, whom inspired Wasik’s tests. The latter prove how society is prone to quick deceptions, always ready to swallow an attractive narrative. And this book is indicative of how internet culture is weighing in more and more in reality-shaping.