Upworthy Goes Viral by Optimizing Optimism

businessweek.com

16 points·sethbannon··3 comments

I won't hold it against them because it's already happened and inevitable, but part of me mourns the fact that most of what I'll see across social media will increasingly be A/B tested manipulative marketing crap. I have no problem with the particular touching video; I just resent the blockbuster mentality.

Imagine that everyone on HN were actively optimizing what they say according to what gets voted up. Sound good?

That does occur on HN all the time. The titles of blog posts are targeting to entice people to click through. It's a psychological thing -- can I get someone to click on this before they have a second to really think about it. I agree it's very unfortunate.

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/upworthy.com

Traffic seems to be growing exponentially. Upworthy feels like a big deal to me, but I'm struggling to find the proper context: what other sites have been so successful at disseminating socially-aware content across the Internet hive mind? What other sites have gotten this far with manipulating the salience of social issues throughout the online population using finely-tuned viral media?

From their about page:

"We're a mission-driven media company. We're not a newspaper — we'd rather speak truth than appear unbiased. And we're not a political campaign — we're more interested in the powerless versus the powerful than in Democrats versus Republicans."

This isn't just about optimism. This is about promoting social justice by using virality as a transmission tool.

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