In my continuing attempt to understand marketing I came across a new term - Viral Expansion Loops.....? A Viral Expansion Loop is “a type of engineering alchemy that, done right, almost guarantees a self-replicating, borglike growth: One user becomes two, then four, eight, to a million and beyond.” Examples of Viral Expansion Loops are Youtube, Facebook, Linkedin, twitter..... the list goes on. It is also possible to create your own social nextwork using Ning. A company that lets you create a Viral Expansion Loop is one of the best example of a Viral Expansion Loop. Using Ning you can create your own social network? You can create your very own Facebook. Pick a topic that interests you, then create some content and begin propagating your own Social Network using Ning Nets. Who needs a web page anymore when you can become your own social networking site: http://about.ning.com/product/index.php
This makes my experiments with mini-viral events seem like child’s play. Here I go again, becoming amazed by how much I don’t know. Why you would want to be your own facebook is the real question? Or maybe the question is why not? If you have the time and a specific interest in a topic, build a social network using Ning Nets and the people will come. Think of a camera club, a hockey pool or an internal company social network that can help you work on virtual team building and communication? I was lead down this rabbit hole by pages 71 to 76 of Mitch Joel’s book - Six Pixels of Separation. All this from one paragraph at the bottom of page 71. I’ll have to stick with ripples and mini-viral events. As crazy and interesting as Viral Expansion Loops are, I know when I’m swimming in waters that run a little too deep.
For more on Viral Expansion loops:
http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/the-viral-expansion-loop
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/125/nings-infinite-ambition.html?page=0%2C0
