Due to an article published on Mashable in October of last year called "3 Things Any Video Needs to Go Viral," I was prompted to write my own rendition (written by an avid Youtuber).
So, what does it take to get to a million views, tens of millions of views, more? Well, the people have spoken and called these videos "viral". Yeah, viral. Not a pretty name, but it gets the message across. These videos have some immutable power that helps them spread like wildfire and today I'm here to show you the 3 things you need to make a viral video.
Like author (and expert in social video advertising) Dan Greenberg states, creating a viral video is very much a science, and here's the formula.
1. Auto-tune
The recipe to success of very many viral videos rests with autotone, enough said. Well, the same holds true with popular music, so why not videos. Haha.
Time (~7M views):
And Time (~68M views):
Again (~21M views):
2. Babies
We can't get enough. Countless times, we've seen these babies (usually laughing) - it's actually a bit creepy that we spend so many collective hours watching other peoples' children, but we're still glued to the screen why? Because it's the #2 element of making viral videos. What's the most popular type of baby - it seems to be of the british and laughing variety.
British Babies (~274M views, yeah this is in the top 10):
Laughing Baby #1 (~158M views):
Laughing Baby #2 (~25M views):
3. Cats
There's something about cats that we just can't get enough of. It may be their curiosity that makes cat videos so appealing.
Funny Cats (~47M views):
Actually, this category should be called, cute animals or cute things our animals do (~15M views):
Haha, so there you have it. The formula for a surefire viral video:
Auto-tune + Babies + Cute Animals = Guaranteed Viral Video
Lol, so get to work! Auto-tune your baby speaking gibberish in aut-tune, while riding your pet cat that's chasing it's own tail. You'll get MILLIONS of hits! :).
Well yes, this statement is a little harsh, considering I'll only be discussing one particular issue, but I think it's about time to reevaluate whether Google's mantra of "Don't Be Evil" is really something they abide by. Let me first say that I have nothing personal against Google and that I think they've made some incredible products and have helped to mold the industry I am currently involved with today. Google has helped set the groundwork for the growth of the technology sector, the acceptance of things like social networking and making data more readily available, etc. And as you can see with my other posts, I passionately love all my Google related accounts and products. What I am trying to say is - is it fair Google to say it's not evil? Companies run under very many motives - many of which are driven by things like the bottom line and market saturation of their own product (aka monopoly). Are these motive not evil? Isn't the goal to force people to use your product so you have greater market share and higher profits? With this being said, an since Google is obviously one of these aforementioned companies, is it safe to say that Google isn't being evil. Now onto the matter at hand: Kongregate Arcade. For those of you that don't know what Kongregate is, it's a GameStop-owned website, home to thousands of independently developed flash games. Yes, they host games that you might have seen on other sites like AddictingGames.com or some other variation of that URL, but they added a new spin to flash games. To make these web games a little more exciting, Kongregate founder Jim Greer introduced "achievements," which added a hint of community building that drove user retention through the roof. Think of Xbox achievements for flash games. Yeah, it's pretty cool when you get to compare your skills across multiple games against other people online. Or...maybe that's just me. In any case, this was years back when I first started playing on Kongregate in 2008 and then slowly lost interest. I found myself interested more and more in mobile applications and mobile social gaming, a space that is heavily fragmented, but is also home to big hitters like Zynga, Glu, Gameloft, etc. Mobile games are much easier to play when you're on the go, especially in transit for long public transportation rides like on BART, Caltrain, or ACTransit/MUNI if you're in the SF Bay Area (this is also why games like Angry Birds have had so many downloads - that's where the people are). So naturally, you'd think this was a good place for Kongregate to insert themselves. That's where Kongregate Arcade comes in - essentially an arcade of flash games only available on your Android device because it supports flash and flash-based browser entertainment. But can you find Kongregate Arcade in the Android Marketplace? Even with all that FREE flash game glory? Simply put...no. Why is that? Well according to Greer in a recent article written in VentureBeat, "Google said the Kongregate Arcade app behaved like an app store, violating the non-compete clause in Google’s terms of service agreement." That's a load of BS. What do you call the default Amazon Music App that comes as a pre-install that you CAN'T uninstall (easily) from your phone, or what about the Amazon Kindle store that lets you buy books directly from their virtual bookstore. Yeah... Well, let's think about this a bit more. Lately, Google has had a couple things on their mind to get back in the spotlight. Something along the lines of - "perhaps we should launch a suite of social-based web apps like Buzz/Wave/Profile that helps Google users (and ONLY Google users) interact with each other on a more social basis, kind of like that social network site Facebook". And when they saw Facebook firmly plant its stake in social gaming with the integration of Zynga games, it only aggravated Google more, something like "HEY! we want to be a good social gaming platform too!" And that's why I think Google banned Kongregate Arcade - because they were thinking about their non-existent social gaming platform to launch in response to Facebook. Yes, Google is facing hard times, but their entire no evil mantra and push for "open source" everything doesn't approve of this marketplace ban. I can see why iTunes would do something like this since they're stood by their super "walled garden" approach for years, but Google, come on Sergey/Larry! Give us flash games! I know you want this social gaming niche for Android all to yourselves, but what about Android being an open source partner for the independent developer crowd! It's so not like you and that's 13M active gamers you're leaving out in the cold. Well thanks to the nature of the Android OS, it's still possible to download the Kongregate Arcade app - AT YOUR OWN RISK! Well, it's obviously a real app and not some scam, so please feel free to download as necessary. If you're a Kongregate fan and want these games on a native app in your phone, follow these instructions: Disclaimers: this will not work if you don't have Android 2.2 (Froyo) and you don't have the Adobe Flash player 10.1 installed. but if you do...awesome! 1. Navigate to http://www.kongregate.com/android (if it doesn't automatically work as the website indicates, you can download the .apk from the website on your computer and install manually) If that's too hard, let's do it this way: 1. Navigate to http://www.getjar.com/mobile/53364/kongregate-arcade/ (for those of you that don't know getjar, it's a trusted publishing platform which acts as a mall for mobile downloads) 2. Select your phone as it prompts you so you get the right download 3. Opt to send a text to your phone with the link 4. While you wait for the link, you'll have to allow "unknown sources" for now (it's not that scary, companies like Glue do it all the time to secretly let out alpha/beta app releases) 4a. Go to settings 4b. Go to applications 4c. Check the "Unknown Source" box. 5. Go to your text and to the link to download, ignore the advertising link 6. After it downloads and installs, go back to your applications and uncheck the "Unknown Sources" box And there you have it. It wasn't that hard...and now you have Kongregate Arcade to play flash games to your hearts content. If you too think that Google is becoming a little more like Apple has traditionally been in its walled garden approach, I'd like to know your thoughts too! It's rare for Google/Android to flex its might muscles against independent developers because it poses some kind of threat to the native app store, but hey it might mean Google Games is coming out soon. Let's just hope it's a bit more polished than Google's attempts at socializing. Good luck Kongregate, I hope Larry realizes that these little decisions are big mistakes and allows indiscriminate publication of (tasteful and virus-free) apps. Here's GameStop's Youtube promotional video:
A few months back, I had the pleasure of attending a meetup hosted by the Lean Startup Circle of San Francisco. It was an amazing experience and I'll tell you why. It was more than the fact that I'd learned immensely from the keynote speaker Drew Houston of Dropbox and that I'd met a room full of people that I can now call my network, but it was one time that I can truly say I was in a room that displayed the drive and tenacity to build and succeed that we are missing everyday given the current economic climate. Everyone in the room had their eyes set on a prize, a goal that they were attempting to reach, and that's why they were all here to listen to a guy that started a simple business a couple years back and made a million dollar business from simply identifying a market pain.
Let me start off by giving Dropbox the utmost praise it deserves. It's an amazing SaaS (software as a service) product that I've been using years back when it was nothing other than http://www.getdropbox.com and a cool little video. Since then it's developed into a service that millions of people around the world use (and rely on) daily. I must confess, when I first learned about Dropbox, I was nothing like I am today. I knew little about the startup industry, other than that I was growingly interested in the developments of social networks and very niche verticals like "web-based file hosting services in the cloud." Yes, I learned about Dropbox by doing a "similar" search on Google of an app that I downloaded through the Blackberry App World called SugarSync.
For me, it was love at first site with Dropbox, and this meant that Drew and the whole Dropbox Team had done their job. If they are able to snag the early adopters (like me) that are key influencers within smaller circles, then they surely had a solid marketing strategy and scalable business plan for customer acquisition. Here are the lessons learned from the horse's mouth (Drew) and boiled down by yours truly:
Make something that people want
There is always early risk
Launch at a time that's ready for your business
Learn about potential early success early
Learn early, learn often (not launch early, launch often)
Go where your early adopters hang out
Cut to the point (draw initial attention fast and remove friction)
Capture and retain early interest
Niche first, world later
Create a repeatable and scalable mechanism
Be scrappy
Make sure what you are doing is valuable (validate, validate, validate)
Get mainstream interest
Move beyond TechCrunch as a goal
Real organic growth comes from W.O.M. (word of mouth)
(For beta) Let people in when you need to learn something useful
For those of you that care to stick around, let me break it down for you:
Make something that people want. It's very important. Before you start any new venture, validate that market and do your due diligence. Building a scalable business starts with a product and the strength of the product will amplify itself. Drew pointed out specifically that the segway was an amazingly designed (and marketed) product that failed because it was a poor market fit.
There is always early risk. With any startup, there is always early risk. With that being said, if something is bound to fail, make sure it fails as fast as possible. There is no use pumping resources into a product that no one will use even if it has all the world's marketing force behind it.
Launch at a time that's ready for your business. This applies to certain companies better than others. From the experts, there are starkly conflicting views. We have Paul Graham from Y Combinator who says launch as soon as physically possible. Joel Spolsky says launch "when it doesn't suck," aka take the Marimba Phenomenon into account (this is when more money is spent on marketing and PR than development). In the case of Dropbox, it made sense to launch only when the entire product was 100% because they didn't want to risk the one outlier experience that could spoil the milk
Learn about potential early success, early. What does this mean? Well it means validate the need in the market to prevent yourself from spending money on an already dead product. Save money spent on resources if you know it's not going to work. In the case of Dropbox, Drew pointed out that the online storage space was very fragmented and no product would fit a single purpose - that's where Dropbox would fit perfectly.
Learn early, learn often. I cannot stress enough about how important it is to learn who you audience is. It doesn't matter how great a product is and how much time and sweat you put into it, the only thing that matters at the end of the day is who will use it - and will they use it.
Go where your early adopters hang out. This is a topic that I emphasize with EVERYONE I meet. It's important to influence your audience early on - even before your product is fully built. You want to build interest, you want to validate your product, you want to do as much as you can early on to ensure that your product will succeed within your specially built niche. If you come from the audience you are trying to appeal to, your conversation will be much more organic.
Cut to the point. This can mean a variety of things, but what I'm referring to is your marketing. When you want to entice people, you don't want to show them how to log in, you want to show them the usefulness of your product. How do you do that? Draw initial attention fast and remove friction. For example, on your landing page, instead of putting detailed instructions on how to work the program, lead them to a video that can convey the utility of your product. And instead of trying to capture all your user data upfront, make it easier (less friction) for users to register and use your product. Don't give everything up front, put enough out there to tease your audience into using your product. If your product speaks for itself, there won't be any problem keeping them once you've got them.
Capture and retain early interest. Simple enough, right? Some of you might contest that this point contradicts the philosophy of "launch at a time that's ready for your business," but it really doesn't. All this means is throw up a simple email form so that you can capture early adopter interest instead of pushing them away since your product isn't complete. This doesn't mean you have to show them everything prematurely. It just means you might have to put them in a bit of suspense.
Niche first, world later. Had it not been for Drew, I wouldn't have ever thought of this. What does it mean? it means focus on your community first and then bring your product to the world. You can get more market saturation if you limite the audience. Yes, you heard right, and it's not the first time you've heard the story. Remember that website called Facebook? Yeah, they started in Harvard, the Ivy League, and eventually expanded to college students, high school, and then the world (missing a few steps in there, but you get the point). If you can learn from anyone in this case, it's the success of Facebook in implementing this idea. Target your community first, the world can come later.
Create a repeatable and scalable mechanism. This is almost the most important (and viral) aspect of getting traction. This mechanism for Dropbox refers directly to their "share Dropbox with a friend and you BOTH get a reward" plan. Getting traction starts with one user and if you build a repeatable and scalable mechanism to facilitate the process of spreading the word there are endless possibilities for growth.
Be scrappy. Yes, you've heard it thousands of times and it may seem cliche, but it's true in the case of almost ALL new startups. What does it mean? Well it means "fake it 'til you make it." If you have a service that requires user generated content and usership to entice new users, make the damn content yourself. Yes, faking it works sometimes. In the case of Aardvark, the social Q&A website recently acquire by Google for $50M, the founders didn't have the resources or the focus to build an algorithm to solve answers posed by the community and they didn't have a big enough community yet to self sustain the incoming questions. What'd they do? The founders hand researched the answers to questions and sent them directly to the askers. Yes, that's being scrappy and it seems they did quite well for themselves.
Make sure what you are doing is valuable. I can't stress this enough. I've mentioned it before and I'll mention it again. Validate, validate, validate. Learn about your audience, learn about how they change and how they use your product, and make sure you don't alienate anyone. You have to constantly learn about your demographic and how it reacts to your product. Without the audience, there is no product.
Next, get mainstream interest. How do you do that? It's tough to give a definitive answer for all companies. For some, it might mean buying AdWords from Google. For others, it might mean hiring a VP of marketing to focus directly on SEM, SEO, PPC, etc. You really need to use your own discretion to drive this user acquisition in the context of your own business. What will work for some will not necessarily work for others. A/B test, test, and test some more. It doesn't hurt to try everything in your arsenal before you hit eureka.
Move beyond TechCrunch as a goal. Don't rely on scoring a publication in a major publisher like TechCrunch, Mashable, GigaOm, VentureBeat, yes, I can keep going. Things like a repeatable and scalable mechanism and organic W.O.M. are much more sustainable goals to reach in order to grow your company.
Real organic growth comes from word of mouth. Werd.
Let people in when you need to learn something useful. Well this really only applies to beta launches. When you are initially testing out certain features or A/B testing graphics, it's important to get in new faces. Funnel in new faces (from your stored list of early adopters) to get a new look on your product.
At the end of the day, there are three things that you MUST take away if anything:
You can't build a billion dollar company without a billion dollar audience. The goal is always to build an audience, but there are infinite ways to get there.
Create something that makes people happy and solves a problem (pain). Or there really is no need.
Focus. Keep your main thing your main thing. You'll hear this over and over again. You can think of all the great ideas in the world, but execution is key. Focus on your product and how relevant it is for your audience and put the rest on the drawing board. If it's a good enough idea, it will wait for you while you build your billion dollar company.
During this time of year, there is almost a mandatory look back on the year past and forward to a forecast on the new year. I wanted to try something a bit simpler than the traditional - "this is what was significant of last year and this is my resolution."
Simply put, everyone needs to take a look back at their own 2010 and how they can change or improve in 2011. Here's what I recommend:
1. Tagline for 2010
2. A Single Word to Describe your Efforts in 2011 (as a reflective action)
What is mine?
1. Learn fast and move on.
2. Build
I don't want anyone to get it wrong. 2010 was a great year for learning new things, but also a year where I've hit hardships as well. It's a good time to let myself know that there is a bright future ahead and that I need to continuously "iterate" myself to make a better impression in 2011. And build? Why build? Well, I want to take this opportunity to tell myself once and firmly that 2011 will be the year I strengthen friendships, make partnerships, and build my own reputation within the startup scene. It's time to build a bright 2011 and I'll see you in the new year.
Here I write anything and everything that I've been thinking about. News, reviews, activities from my summer abroad in Beijing, China. This blog mostly details my accounts as a student at Beijing Normal University where I am studying with UC students through the Education Abroad Program for Summer and Fall Semesters.
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Why is that? Well according to Greer in a 
