Viral Video Exposed!

Viral Videos has been voted the Net’s  #1   Viral Site!
 
Viral Videos

Viral Video Research that has been conducted on viral videos reflects the media’s newness. To
this date, there has been limited research in the field of viral Video from  YouTube videos.
In a Spring 2011 study of the making of a Viral Video by Tyler West of Elon University, 9 factors were deemed “important
determinants” for its success. The Broadcast Journalism and International Studies student found that: run-time, laughter,
element of surprise, element of irony, minority presence, music quality, youth presence and talent were the most important
factors in making the making of  a viral video ! These are the factors which explain why a certain video becomes a fixture in today’s  popular culture.
In addition, West points out that “understanding the prevalent elements within viral video will allow for the prediction
of which viral videos become popular” and how to produce future viral videos for viral marketing campaingns.
It is important to note, that even though the content of these clips seems to be different, it does not mean that the viral video
does not share the above important common elements.
Some argue that viral videos are a new driving force of pop culture! The researchers Linkletter et al.(2009) claim the
influence of online viral video is so strong, certain viral video clips have persuaded people to take unhealthy risks. Some researchers have found that “oddness” and “amateurism” had added to a viral videos appeal – both related to the irony factor noted above. And
few claim that the blogosphere has contributed to the rise of many viral videos since many people now receive their news from
online bloggers and the bloggers have themselves tied these viral  videos to their blogs! Some other finding of the study included viral videos with titles of 3 words or less, run times of less than 3 minutes and musical qualities. This information reflects the widely held beliefs that people are more drawn to online content they can digest quickly.  Additionally, irony was the element found most often in this study (90%). The study also found that people are drawn to the extremes of both candid and practiced content.
Nevertheless, viral videos are still much of a mystery. Cell phones are also said to be a contributing factor in the making of a viral video! 

Viral Video

None of the research has yet determined the path viral videos take to reach wild popularity.
For this reason, continuing research on this topic should be combined with social media networks.
Through understanding how a video becomes viral video- how social media promotes the
medium – fabricating viral videos will become more of an art form than a guessing game.

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Jay Perry…

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