State of Social in Social Games | Aki Järvinen. Rating: 3.8/5 (4 votes cast) What, if anything, makes social games social? What is ‘social’ made of, anyway? Digital Chocolate’s Lead Social Designer Aki Järvinen answers the question by analyzing the current state of social exchanges in Facebook games. He introduces concepts such as social presence, social graph, and social space to explain the kind of social interactions these games embrace, and fail to embrace at the moment. The concepts are put into practice with a display of concrete examples from various titles. The talk is targeted at anyone working with social games, regardless of platform.
The attendants will walk away with a set of design vocabulary which helps in creating and evaluating engaging social exchanges, and serves as an inspiration to redefine social in social games. Delivered at Casual Connect Europe, February 2011 Aki Järvinen works as the Lead Social Designer at Digital Chocolate’s Helsinki studio in Finland.
Here Are 10 Tips From BuzzFeed To Make Your Content Go Viral. Avoid the Temptation of Common Sense, Says Researcher Duncan Watts (Video) | Liz Gannes | NetworkEffect | AllThingsD. Social science researcher Duncan Watts says we are too trusting of common sense. We fool ourselves into thinking we can explain how influence and innovation happen, when we really have no idea. Watts’s new book, “Everything is Obvious, Once You Know the Answer,” argues that the problems of social systems require rigorous study just like physics and engineering (where Watts started his career). But because we are all humans trying to make sense of the world and how we relate to each other, we tell ourselves stories about why things inevitably happened that seem to suffice.
The good thing is, now that we’re putting all this personal data online and having all so many of our interactions documented, we may be able to better study ourselves. It’s common sense to think that influential people start social trends, a la Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point.” Watts is extremely well respected in his field for his study of social networks. Www.davidmeermanscott.com/documents/Viral_Marketing.pdf. Ning's Infinite Ambition -- Viral Networks -- Social Networking Start-Ups | Page 5.
DFJ - Viral Marketing. Untitled Document. Case Study #1 "How Hotmail grew to 12 million users ... in just 18 months! " When Microsoft launched their Hotmail e-mail service, they wanted to grow fast. So they launched an extremely clever viral marketing campaign: Hotmail attached a tiny advertisement to the bottom of every e-mail people sent using their service, offering FREE e-mail accounts. Here's what it looked like: So every e-mail sent by a Hotmail user became a word-of-mouth referral for the company! In just 18 months, Hotmail grew its subscriber base from zero to 12 MILLION users -- faster than any company in any media in the history of the world!
In the process, they built a multimillion-dollar business... ... and blew other free e-mail providers, with their ultra-expensive ad campaigns, right out of the water! ISSUE: Unless you have a product people MUST share to use, this viral marketing technique will be difficult for you to implement! Going Viral in 6 Questions, Part One: Spymaster. Congresswoman Dina Titus has taken to social media to poke fun at prediction markets in the wake of the FAIR BET Act’s momentum.
The representative from the First District of Nevada in the US House of Representatives has been seeking a “common sense fix” to the changes introduced in the current President of the United States’ (POTUS) megabill, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). FAIR BET Act gathers support The changes introduced in the OBBBA would mean that gamblers would face a 90% reduction in taxation on gambling earnings, compared to the current 100%.
This would mean a gambler who wins $100,000 and then loses $100,000 would be required to pay $10,000 in taxes, despite the loss of profit, as we reported. The Congresswoman is hoping that the act’s introduction, which she heralded earlier this week (July 21, 2025), will combat some of the wider sweeping gambling changes that were proposed in the OBBBA. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA)Rep. Titus pokes fun at prediction markets. Joshua porter. Viral Marketing: Engineered or Happenstance? | VCMike's Blog. The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing. Editor’s Note: Dr. Wilson first published this article in 2000. He then updated it in 2005. We updated it a third time, in 2012. I admit it. The term “viral marketing” is offensive. Call yourself a viral marketer and people will take two steps back.
I would. But you have to admire the virus. In a few short generations, a virus population can explode. Viral Marketing Defined What does a virus have to do with marketing? Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as “word-of-mouth,” “creating a buzz,” “leveraging the media,” “network marketing.” The Classic Hotmail Example The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free web-based email services. Like tiny waves spreading ever farther from a single pebble dropped into a pond, a carefully designed viral marketing strategy ripples outward extremely rapidly. Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy Accept this fact. Let’s examine at each of these elements briefly. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Most people are social. 6. Changethis.com/manifesto/7.WordOfMouth/pdf/7.WordOfMouth.
Arch Viral: Creating Social Apps for Social Platforms (Lance Tokuda, Startonomics SF 2008) Let's just add in a little virality. It happens all the time. I’m meeting with an entrepreneur, who is telling me about a really innovative product idea for a consumer website. And I’m liking it. We’re going back and forth on product ideas. And before I know it, we’re approaching the end of our meeting. I then ask them, “So, how are you going to acquire customers.” And that’s when it happens. The most disappointing answer is when they say “Oh, we’ll just make it viral.” Virality is something that has to be engineered from the beginning…and it’s harder to create virality than it is to create a good product. That’s why First Round Capital’s website has always said: “Too many companies treat marketing and sales as a tactical afterthought. Customer acquisition (also called distribution) is the number one challenge facing consumer web properties. Virality is all about making your users look awesome in front of their friends | Henrik Werdelin.
Understanding the key variables in Viral Marketing. A short study of this web site reveals that a hugely important factor for success in startup companies is finding ways to acquire customers at a low cost. In the Business Models section, we looked at the perfect business model: Viral customer acquisition with good monetization. However viral growth turns out to be an elusive goal, and only a very small number of companies actually achieve true viral growth. In 2005, I invested in a company called Tabblo (acquired by HP in 2007), and had the good fortune to work with an outstanding entrepreneur, Antonio Rodriguez. Tabblo did manage to achieve good viral growth, but around the same time YouTube was launched and managed to achieve explosive viral growth.
In the process of looking at these two companies, we learnt several important things about virality. To give you a preview of this post, what you will learn is that there are two key parameters that drive how viral growth happens, the Viral Coefficient, and the Viral Cycle Time.