Interesting article on the subject from Columbia University web site which relates to ‘ pass on rates ‘ demonstrating viral campaigns are more often than not, not actually ‘ viral ‘ at all : http://cdg.columbia.edu/uploads/papers/watts2007_viralMarketing.pdf

Good article -- I love anything that brings a "grain of salt" to an argument.

I find myself reflecting on valuation a lot over the years, the US Pragmatists often come up (Pierce, Dewey, James, etc). One of their quips was that "truth is dollar value", or put another way, the "practical consequences" of any item is what sets its value (and what people are _prepared_ to pay). Taking a split between material value and personal value, historicity is very much on the personal side. Its only practical ($) consequence is a belief that someone else would be prepared to buy that item in future at a good price (for the same kind of reasons you bought it). This depends on what a person believes, including what they believe about what other persons believe. Where I see a red herring, or maybe a pretend red herring, with the Internet and Web 2.0 is the way "Information" is characterised. Claude Shannon developed a way to measure information (in bits) - primarily to manage channel capacity. His measure was simply a number of bits. The importance of those bits is really about the impact on the receiver (recipient) of those bits - how their beliefs and actions change. Ie, the value is set by the audience, no matter how poor their truth filters and susceptibilities are. The valuation of the bits, whether ubiquitous or searched for, happens after exposure. Hopefully it improves the filters and the susceptibilities. [Yes, I agree this doesn't pass the "Grade 9 readability test].

ok..after spending a few minutes confusing myself over Toms comment about a "pretend red herring"... here's my out-pouring: Surely it's the impact of what we consume that makes us value it. Read this one of a million blogs postings and tell me it has no value. http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/01/andy-olmsted.html I trust in the good taste of our fellow onliners, to make sure that real cream rises to the top, no matter how deeply buried in sea of chaff it may be!

Nick mentioned enticingly the obsidianwings blog about Andy Olmsted. I took a look based on Nick's recommendation. That's the only reason I went there. That's the story. Nick is/was part of my means to information. The Andy blog story was poignant and quite moving, but (very sadly) one of several thousand other similar stories. It evoked a lot of intense responses. Here's another blog (about air marshals - by Patrick Smith) which isn't moving at all, but also evoked a lot of intense responses: http://jetlagged.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/the-airport-security-follies/index.html?source=cmailer

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080115.RAPPLE15/TPStory/Business