When Judson Laipply posted his six-minute “Evolution of Dance” video to YouTube in April of 2006, he didn’t advertise it at all. One month later, someone noticed his frenzied moves and e-mailed it to a friend. That friend e-mailed to other friends and more than 100 million views later, the rest is history. “It was all just pure luck” Mr. Laipply says.
Facebook’s “25 Things About Me” meme seems harmless enough; people write 25 facts about themselves and post them on their Facebook pages, just as they do with videos, status updates and photos of last weekend’s party. An estimated 5 million of these notes — that’s 125 million facts — have appeared on the website within the past week.