By now, you’ve likely heard of SOPA & PIPA and all the protests revolving around them.  If not, definitely take a minute to read up on what’s going on in Congress in terms of the freedom of the internet.

In other Internet news, I’m a little bit in awe of the “viral” mechanism the internet creates.  Just yesterday, a friend found the following video posted on Reddit and shared it with me only 6 hours after it was uploaded by an un-famous person from Australia. Throughout the day, I saw at least 20 other people & news outlets talking about it and reposting it on Twitter & Facebook.

When I saw it, it stood at 301 views. It now has over 4.5 million. Mind-blowing numbers.

What is it that causes a video to “go viral” and why would a marketer want that to happen to their content?  In basic terms, a piece of viral content is something that gets shared all over the internet – on multiple websites and passed along from person to person via email and social media.  For some marketers, it’s the ultimate dream: create a bit of content that catches interest and inspires people to share it with their social circles.  It’s word-of-mouth advertising in digital format, and if successful, can have great ROI.  WPMU, the WordPress experts, have a great series that explains virality from start to finish. Mashable, one of the web’s leading social media news outlets, created the following infographic to help explain the phenomenon:

Click to view larger.

Do you have a product or service that would do well in a viral marketing campaign?