Adam L. Penenberg - Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves

96 kbps, Unabridged, Read by Richard E Allen
 
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/viral-loop-adam-l-penenberg/1100317692

Overview
"Adam Penenberg's lively book opens a window to all of our futures..."
—Ken Auletta, author of Googled: The End of the World as We Know It

Here's something you may not know about today's Internet. Simply by designing your product the right way, you can build a flourishing business from scratch. No advertising or marketing budget, no need for a sales force, and venture capitalists will flock to throw money at you.

Many of the most successful Web 2.0 companies, including MySpace, YouTube, eBay, and rising stars like Twitter and Flickr, are prime examples of what journalist Adam L. Penenberg calls a "viral loop"—to use it, you have to spread it. After all, what's the sense of being on Facebook if none of your friends are The result: Never before has there been the potential to create wealth this fast, on this scale, and starting with so little.

In this game-changing must-read, Penenberg tells the fascinating story of the entrepreneurs who first harnessed the unprecedented potential of viral loops to create the successful online businesses—some worth billions of dollars—that we have all grown to rely on. The trick is that they created something people really want, so much so that their customers happily spread the word about their product for them.

All kinds of businesses—from the smallest start-ups to nonprofit organizations to the biggest multinational corporations—can use the paradigm-busting power of viral loops to enable their business through technology. Viral Loop is a must-read for any entrepreneur or business interested in uncorking viral loops to benefit their bottom line.

Editorial Reviews
Publishers Weekly
Allen's powerful voice and thoughtful vocals are the perfect medium to relay Penenberg's pronouncements about how such Web 2.0 businesses as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr are reconfiguring marketing models and the road to wealth—and how the mechanisms driving the growth of user-driven technologies are nothing new (remember Tupperware parties?). It's a snappy, topical read made even more memorable by Allen's performance: his vocal range is wide, but he wisely scales back his intensity to command our attention with his sheer charisma. A Hyperion hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 26). (Nov.)

Product Details
ISBN-13: 9781401323493
Publisher: Hyperion
Publication date: 10/13/2009

Meet the Author
Richard Allen is professor and chair of cinema studies at New York University. He is the author of numerous essays on Hitchcock, coeditor of two anthologies, "Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays" and "Hitchcock: Past and Future," and with Sidney Gottlieb he edits the "Hitchcock Annual" for Wallflower Press.