Clive Thompson writes up Duncan Watts’ research (most recently with our friend Jonah Peretti) on Fast Company. Duncan’s work is a big influence on mine, and the article also mentions the Nike emails, which influenced my career as much as Duncan’s and Jonah’s, and their latest work on the concept of big seed marketing, which in many ways the technique Next New Networks uses to give big launches to content, which then spreads more by word of mouth. Currently, we do it without spending seed money for placement, however. Through editorial relationships with partners, we were able to create favorable conditions - including simultaneous front page placements on YouTube and MySpace - that led to four million views of “Internet People” in a couple of days, and two weeks ago, we used PR outreach to media including FOX News and MSNBC to help the latest Obama Girl video hit similar heights on the eve of Obama’s win in Iowa.
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