- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Sceptre (12 Nov 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0340918675
- ISBN-13: 978-0340918678
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.4 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 360,261 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Viral Loop: The Power of Pass-It-On
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Product Description
Review
"One of the most astounding things about the Web age is how the best advertising is often no advertising at all. Penenberg masterfully explains how this works with case studies of products that were designed to spread. Every product can use a dose of this technique; this is the book to get to learn how. Recommended!" (Chris Anderson, bestselling author of The Long Tail and Free )
"In tight, engaging prose, Adam captures the essence of the ever-scaling power of the virus. It's not just for geeks any more." (Seth Godin, author of Tribes )
"Penenberg has unlocked the secret to the most successful digital businesses. An indispensable read." (Robert Safian, Editor-in-Chief, Fast Company )
"If you want to understand all things viral, this is the place to start. Penenberg's reporting gives us a ringside seat for some of the biggest viral success stories in history, from Tupperware to Ning." (Dan Heath, co-author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die )
"In tight, engaging prose, Adam captures the essence of the ever-scaling power of the virus. It's not just for geeks any more." (Seth Godin, author of Tribes )
"Penenberg has unlocked the secret to the most successful digital businesses. An indispensable read." (Robert Safian, Editor-in-Chief, Fast Company )
"If you want to understand all things viral, this is the place to start. Penenberg's reporting gives us a ringside seat for some of the biggest viral success stories in history, from Tupperware to Ning." (Dan Heath, co-author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die )
Product Description
Here's how it works: you read a book you enjoy and you tell a friend. That friend tells another friend, the next friend tells the next, and so on and so forth, until the book becomes that year's word-of-mouth bestseller. That first recommendation gives birth to many. Simple. The concept of pass-it-on is not so new and not so revolutionary - think Tupperware parties - that is, until forward-thinking Web companies got hold of it and created their own, mightily efficient, money-spinning model known as the Viral Loop: the ability to grow a company exponentially because the customers themselves spread it. Super simple.
Outfits such as Google, eBay, Flickr and Facebook all employ the model at the core of their business; all have seen their stock valuations skyrocket within years of forming. The genius lies in the model's reliance on replication: what's the point of using Facebook if none of your friends can see your profile, or using Flickr if you can't share your photos? Where's the joy in posting a video on YouTube if no one watches it? Thus, in creating a viral product that people want, need and desire, growth can, and will, take care of itself. Business has never been so straightforward, or so it would seem...
In this ground-breaking work, the first to analyze this paradigm-busting phenomenon, we are introduced to the architects of the Viral Loop and the companies which profit from its mechanics. Insightful, timely and revelatory, it will reveal the secrets behind the most successful businesses in recent history, and will explain how the Loop will catch you up, sooner rather than later.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Business books? Too often a badly written mish-mash of obvious statements posing as deep insight and slung together with all the care of fast food.
The opposite, however, is the case here. This is a fascinating book for several reasons. Mainly, for me, there is no chapter headed "The Top Ten Secrets of Viral Marketing They Don't Teach You at Harvard". Which is a relief. It is very well written - plain accessible English, well structured, thoughtful, appropriate and effective use of theory and data combined with well told human interest stories.
And what stories - the chapter on Ebay alone is the sort of thing that could only be true as no one would believe such a rocket powered ascent in a novel.
The main value of this book is that it shows beyond doubt that the human desire for connection and conversation will be met through the internet as long as the internet is around. In other words - this stuff is here to stay and will be a natural part of the human landscape. And therefore, we had all better learn how to get the best from it. And there are some truly inspiring and gripping tales here of how several people did that and got very rich as a result.
This is one of the few business books that has made me actually alter my behaviour. As a direct result of reading it I am now the excited owner of a Ning network. See - this word of mouth stuff really works! Highly recommended.
The opposite, however, is the case here. This is a fascinating book for several reasons. Mainly, for me, there is no chapter headed "The Top Ten Secrets of Viral Marketing They Don't Teach You at Harvard". Which is a relief. It is very well written - plain accessible English, well structured, thoughtful, appropriate and effective use of theory and data combined with well told human interest stories.
And what stories - the chapter on Ebay alone is the sort of thing that could only be true as no one would believe such a rocket powered ascent in a novel.
The main value of this book is that it shows beyond doubt that the human desire for connection and conversation will be met through the internet as long as the internet is around. In other words - this stuff is here to stay and will be a natural part of the human landscape. And therefore, we had all better learn how to get the best from it. And there are some truly inspiring and gripping tales here of how several people did that and got very rich as a result.
This is one of the few business books that has made me actually alter my behaviour. As a direct result of reading it I am now the excited owner of a Ning network. See - this word of mouth stuff really works! Highly recommended.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
What do Tupperware, HotorNot and ebay have in common? Answer- they are all proponents of " Viral marketing"- companies that have succeeded through word of mouth alone. There's a real interesting story here- and this book tells half of it.
Neatly and efficiently, it relates the stories of several of these companies that have succeeded through clever use of the public. And fascinating stories they are.
And yet..and yet..
There's something missing here. The book is fun and interesting. But it could have been so much more. it could have been much more analytical, letting the reader see behind the business.
I enjoyed it, but I didn't get the feeling I got reading Freakanomics, for example, that I was seeing what goes on behind the magician's curtain. Just a set of anecdotes. Good anecdotes, mind you- but there could have been so much more...
Neatly and efficiently, it relates the stories of several of these companies that have succeeded through clever use of the public. And fascinating stories they are.
And yet..and yet..
There's something missing here. The book is fun and interesting. But it could have been so much more. it could have been much more analytical, letting the reader see behind the business.
I enjoyed it, but I didn't get the feeling I got reading Freakanomics, for example, that I was seeing what goes on behind the magician's curtain. Just a set of anecdotes. Good anecdotes, mind you- but there could have been so much more...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I picked this up to review with low expectations - there are lots of business-y books out there promising to give you some magical formula for incredible website growth, so I opened it up with skeptical eyeballs. The first chapter was a rip-roaring account of the founding of Hot or Not, a website I remember spreading virally in popularity across my university campus in the late 90's. As an end user I remember me and some of my psychology undergrad classmates clicking through for hours and arguing about the evolutionary psychology underlying people's scores (this was waaay before Facebook and the like). Behind the scenes though were a couple of bright young kids running around like crazy trying to ensure they had the bandwidth and the servers to keep hosting the site, and PR buzz that you couldn't possibly dream of as the site exploded and joined the mass consciousness. Those guys are now comfortably rich and the concept has been exported into numerous widgets and social media sites, but its a great opening chapter to a fast-paced and well researched book exploring the history of several similar ventures, both successful and dot-bombs, including MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, and Hotmail.
As I now work at an online company (PatientsLikeMe) there were a lot of useful take-home points that made me see our own marketing and customer acquisition process in a slightly different way. I'm no marketer by the way, so maybe some of this stuff would be more obvious to people with that background, but I liked the historical comparison of word-of-mouth marketing moving from Tupperware parties through to embedded invitations. For many sites the "Virality" of their target audience is clearly important but it's not universally applicable and the last few years have seen virality bump up against privacy concerns. Facebook's Beacon program is a prime example where monetizing the viral network can cause a backlash, and companies with unethical user acquisition strategies are coming under increasing fire.
Adam Penenberg writes well in a lively and accessible manner and I will be on the look out for other work from this author.
As I now work at an online company (PatientsLikeMe) there were a lot of useful take-home points that made me see our own marketing and customer acquisition process in a slightly different way. I'm no marketer by the way, so maybe some of this stuff would be more obvious to people with that background, but I liked the historical comparison of word-of-mouth marketing moving from Tupperware parties through to embedded invitations. For many sites the "Virality" of their target audience is clearly important but it's not universally applicable and the last few years have seen virality bump up against privacy concerns. Facebook's Beacon program is a prime example where monetizing the viral network can cause a backlash, and companies with unethical user acquisition strategies are coming under increasing fire.
Adam Penenberg writes well in a lively and accessible manner and I will be on the look out for other work from this author.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Save your time - this is not about viral marketing
This book can easily be 20 pages long - it's not about viral marketing, instead you will read about marc andreesen dating ning co-founder or hotmail founders childhood in India. Read more
Published 16 days ago by michalu
Well-researched and very readable book on positive feedback and...
This is a well-researched and very readable book on the power of positive feedback loops in marketing. It contains many useful examples. Read more
Published 3 months ago by N. A. Fryars
An excellent book that fills a widening gap in terms of readable...
This book is a much needed easy-to-read introduction to platforms and viral companies, but faces a problem: shelf life. Read more
Published 5 months ago by W. Page
Interesting, but of limited practical use
Viral loop is a book about word-of-mouth marketing, largely on the internet. It's well-written, with some interesting stories about the development of facebook, hotmail, ebay and... Read more
Published 7 months ago by S. Diment
Interesting read but is it replicable?
Time after time I got drawn into the success, and otherwise, stories described within the pages of this book - and it is a well-written, often fascinating account of "overnight"... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Clever Spud
Well written, but flawed
This book gets it right in so many areas. It's well written and well-researched. It has some great case studies. What does it get wrong? Read more
Published 14 months ago by Majid
Very interesting
I found this book very interesting. As a digital project manager I am working with the internet quite a lot and it is rare that there is a book which interests me enough on the... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Richard Stowey
Worth a read, but nothing too eye opening
'Viral Loop: The Power of Pass-it-on' contains a number of anecdotes which demonstrate how a campaign going viral can have a massive impact on your business. Read more
Published 23 months ago by M. D. Harris
A fascinating look into systems that work
I didn't think I would be as interested as I turned out to be in the topic, but Penenberg's conversational style kept me interested all the way through. Read more
Published 23 months ago by D Poisson
viral loop
great for information on social media and social networks such as facebook, use it for your e-business with complete confidence, tells you how to talk up your business on google,... Read more
Published on 19 May 2010 by E. Dale
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