Viral effects are not network effects | Hacker News Reader

Viral effects are not network effects

nfx.com

83 pointsallenleee23 comments

Viral effects are advertising with low/no staying power because people lose interest and move on to another bright shiny new thing. Network effects have staying power because people in a network tend to all have similar interests.

The viral effect can be the first step to a network effect.

This is a very important insight -- in fact the main value of the distinction between the two.

"The Facebook" had an initial viral value that bootstrapped its network in a way that, say, HotOrNot did not.

A 'Network'-Effect, Not ?

Short Scenario: Living with an Girlfriend, a normal situation, _you_ are completing her spoken sentences before she could finish (not a 'what was that word'-situation) -because you can and may do what everyday-internet-practice does since...^^

I don’t think you are passing your Turing test, my friend :)

This is a long and market-y way to basically explain two ideas.

Here's the simple idea:

Viruses infect new users. Users go up. Going viral would be things like FOMO or hijacking a popular twitter account with a sign-up bonus link.

A network effect is sometimes used to describe interaction between users. Users go up because users stay or users don't leave. There's a stark difference in an app that everybody uses versus an app that nobody uses, that's basically it.

Math wise: A virus forms a graph that is a tree. Nodes infect nodes infect nodes. Nodes have to be uninfected to be infected. Lots of real life examples.

A network effect is a network of nodes that interact with each other. This is often just like the example they give, where nodes can form multiple connections to each other. If each edge connecting a vertex represented a function adding value to each user, and a viral effect can only sustain an edge to a vertex it previously was not connected to, then yeah by definition one has more connections than the others.

All this article is trying to say, a viral effect can only add value from one user to another.

A network effect can add value from one user to many users and likewise, many users can add value to one user.

One-to-one vs Many-to-Many

"So if you have to choose between viral effects and network effects, choose network effects."

Can anyone give an example of choosing between the two?

Viral effects and network effects seem like complementary things.

I think something viral is something transient and isn’t “repeatable”. Network effects allow things to be repeatable and is leverageable. Viral effects aren’t so leverageable. Viral effects do rely on network effect though.

That doesn't answer the GP's question about choosing between the two.

All I can imagine is what kind of marketing efforts you fund. Do you try to pay partners to integrate or do you go for a viral ad with a celebrity.

I don’t think you can choose. From the way I see it, virality is an emergent phenomenon. You cannot “make” it viral. Virality happens—except with artificial virality via ‘bots.

So to get back to the question I don’t think one can choose natural (uncoördinated) virality. A celebrity takes advantage of their graph on a network but it does not ensure virality at all. Virality is a property assigned by the ephemeral viewership as that item strikes a harmony with the mood of the network members —which isn’t predictable. Obviously if something natural catches on, you’ll have copycats trying to replicate the effect to ride the wave of the original. For that to work you have to weave your message to fit into the phenomenon without seeming too artificial.

With normal probability theory, one can calculate that for neutral-fitness (R=1) potential viral things, the chances that a particular one will spread are small — but those few that do spread significantly hit (in order to maintain that average R=1) an arbitrarily large proportion of the population.

A medium post vs a tweet?

Aren't both just viral?

The virality of medium does not translate to followers (network), as it does in twitter

I think it should be Newsletter Vs a tweet.

newsletter requires a mailing list which is a network.

Logically complementary, but you've always gotta choose which good ideas to build and focus on and which ones not to.

They _are_ network effects, but a function of the social network and not your product. Going viral can be a strategy for getting customers but you still need ongoing value to remain a going concern.

Has anyone here experience of pitching to NFX? They seem quite forward in looking for cold pitches.

I have been asking this in various forums.

Yes - a human will read and respond to your application

But, no, no one reported any meaningful funding progress originating from the online applications..

EDIT: spelling

Note this is fully explained by ~0% of pitches are funded (online or not) and the .0001% that are funded are sought out and reached through insider networks (not inbound applications of any kind, online or not)

Nfx at work!

If I'm working on a viral live streaming project (as in a TV show, not as in a tech platform), who could I talk to for possible seed funding ($100k)?

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