Viral Loops and Networks

In May Adam L. Penenberg wrote an article in Fastcompany about viral loops and networks. He focused on Marc Andreeessen and Gina Bianchini's company Ning.

I'm a member of a few Ning networks and like any network they work well if there's a reason to be there that's compelling enough to make you check yet another network. That reason is the sum of the sweat equity that the members of the group are prepared to put in, multiplied by how much you care about the other members of the network and what they say.

A friend just started a Ning group to share family discussion with his cousins, who are a tight knit group in the real world. It struck me as perfect use for Ning.

But it reminds me of the misundersanding that a log of media executives still carry around. At some level old media people think that if you just put stuff on the Web it will magically be successful. It is the thought that the technology is the solution. Of course it's not. The technology is just a way to make things happen. A way to make good ideas real.

Without good ideas and a lot of work, technology can do nothing. Buying a fast car isn't going to get you to work. Knowing the best route is going to get you to work. The car helps.

Penenberg quotes Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson saying "nothing can be truly viral unless it is good." In the article Wilson adds "you can create a crappy application, build viral hooks in it, but if it's bad, then nobody will follow the viral channel."

That's the challenge for news radio stations. To spend as much editorial time creating something that is as good for their Web site as their current productions are for their air.