I wrote about Professor Wesch’s video Sunday night.
Today, a week after it’s been posted on YouTube, the video has been viewed more than 120,000 times (vs. 8,000 Sunday night).
This morning, Inside Higher Ed has the story behind this instant success in “A Lesson in Viral Video,” an article by Elia Powers published this morning.
So, how did Professor Wesch’s video become such a big hit?
He sent the link to 10 colleagues and friends. It was a second draft. He mostly wanted their feedback. And they responded positively by forwarding the link to a few of their friends. Within hours, the video had more than 100 hits on YouTube.“I was elated,†Wesch said. “By that time I was already satisfied that I generated a viral video.â€
Eventually, a popular blogger [Somewhat Frank] discovered the video and posted it onto his site, which helped send the hits into the thousands.
With the help of Technorati, Digg and other bloggers, the rest is history.
What would be interesting to find out is if this viral video success is going to result in positive outcomes for the academic programs (more applications?)