GoMeme 1.0 -- Testing Meme Propagation In Blogspace: Add Your Blog!

NOTE: This experiment is now finished.

This is an experiment in spreading ideas across weblogs using the principles of viral marketing and social networks using a new method for making content more viral, which we call a "GoMeme."

How To Participate

We have created several versions of this meme in the course of the experiment. The latest version is GoMeme version 4.0. It is the most refined version; You should try this one if you are interested in participating.

Basically we are experimenting to see which kinds of conceptual motivations spread memes best. The first test was a survey which was purely altruistic. The second was survey with a selfish motivation -- a path list so the participant benefits. The third used a humorous article as the host for the meme. The last one in the experiment used a "cause" as the host of the meme. Which one will be the most viral? It's also an experiment in the concept of a path list -- which helps blog authors see the extended upstream and downstream paths for things they post or find on their blogs.

The previous versions of the experiement are listed below for your reference:

- GoMeme 1.0 -- Our first test. (The text for GoMeme 1.0 is located below, in this article, after the "Introduction to Gomeme 1.0" heading. This first test spread very rapidly but did not benefit the parties that helped spread it in any particular way.

- GoMeme 2.0 -- A more evolved version. It has the benefit of not only spreading virally but also of rewarding every site that helps spread it with better Google rankings.

- GoMeme 3.0 -- This is the most advanced version, and also the simplest and shortest. We abstracted the essential core of what makes a GoMeme spread and made it possible to attach it to any piece of content on the Web. So now anything can spread in this manner.

- GoMeme  4.0. This version is the latest and most refined of all. It is a very short posting that you can add to your blog. Unlike the earlier versions, it is focused around a cause -- the cause of making blogs more visible! Let's see if having a cause attached to a meme makes it spread more widely.

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Note: The information below is the first version of our GoMeme experiment (GoMeme 1.0) -- it has been replaced by more recent versions that are more sophisticated and that also reward every site that participates with higher Google rankings.

If you would like to test this out, we suggest you try either - GoMeme 2.0 or
- GoMeme 3.0

You may also want to read the GoMeme 3.0 FAQ

The most recent version is: GoMeme 4.0

The rest of this article, below, is the body text of the original GoMeme 1.0. This is reproduced for informational purposes only. The experiment is finished, please do not continue it.

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GoMeme 1.0

This posting is a community experiment that tests how a meme, represented by this blog posting, spreads across blogspace, physical space and time. It will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected. It may also help to show which blogs (and aggregation sites) are most influential in the propagation of memes. The dataset from this experiment will be public, and can be located via Google (or Technorati) by doing a search for the GUID for this meme (below).

The original posting for this experiment is located at: Minding the Planet (Permalink:  http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/a_sonar_ping_of.html ) --- results and comments about the experiment appear at that location. (Note: If you want to replace this text version for the link for better formatting in your blog, please do at least include a hotlink back to the original post so that we can see your trackback).

Please join the test by adding your blog (see instructions, below) and inviting your friends to participate -- the more the better. The data from this test will be public and open; others may use it to visualize and study the connectedness of blogspace and the propagation of memes across blogs.

The GUID for this experiment is:  as098398298250swg9e  (Note: this replaces the longer, original GUID -- listed below -- which didn't format nicely in narrow column layouts. Those sites still using the longer GUID will still be found in the data set).

The above GUID enables anyone to easily search Google or other search engines for all blogs that participate in this experiment, once they have indexed the sites that participate, which may take several days or weeks. To locate the full data set, just search for the any sites that contain either the short GUID (above).

Anyone is free to analyze the data of this experiment. Please publicize your analysis of the data, and/or any comments by adding comments onto the original post (see URL above). (Note: it would be interesting to see a geographic map or a temporal animation, as well as a social network map of the propagation of this meme.)

To participate, follow the instructions, below...

INSTRUCTIONS

To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and then answer the questions below, substituting your own information, below, where appropriate. Other than answering the questions below, please do not alter the information, layout or format of this post in order to preserve the integrity of the data in this experiment (this will make it easier for searchers and automated bots to find and analyze the results later).

REQUIRED FIELDS (Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers)

(1) I found this experiment at URL: http://www.mindingtheplanet.com

(2) I found it via "Newsreader Software" or "Browsing the Web" or "Searching the Web" or "An E-Mail Message": Browsing the Web

(3) I posted this experiment at URL: http://www.mindingtheplanet.com

(4) I posted this on date (day/month/year): 01/08/04

(5) I posted this at time (24 hour time): 17:50:00

(6) My posting location is (city, state, country): San Francisco, California, USA

OPTIONAL SURVEY FIELDS (Replace the answers below with your own answers):

(7) My blog is hosted by: Typepad

(8) My age is: 35

(9) My gender is: Male

(10) My occupation is: Internet Entrepreneur, Ontologist, Writer

(11) I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: Typepad, FeedDemon

(12) I use the following software to post to my blog: Typepad, Zempt

(13) I have been blogging since (day, month, year): 05/08/03

(14) My web browser is: IE

(15) My operating system is: Windows XP

Comments

[luggage]

Wow, this sounds like a very interesting experiment. I think more research and studies need to be done to see just how useful and how effective viral content is. How does one create it? It’s so hard to tell what’s going to become a huge viral hit and what’s not, and I’m not sure if there’s any way to tell. I am interested in knowing which of your Meme’s did better. I have a feeling that it was the one embedded in the humorous article. While one would think that the second, the survey that offered a benefit to the participant, would be the most popular, I’m not so sure. You see so many viral stories passed around on the web (aka chain letters), that I think a humorous story is just as likely, if not more so, to attract readers and participants.

[Aakash]

I have had the greatest pleasure of visiting your website! It is quite obvious that you have put a great deal of creativity and hard work into your home on the web! You must be quite proud of it! Wish you all the best.

[ROBSON DOS SANTOS]

bravo!!!!!!!!! very well!

robson dos santos, http://www.robsound.mus.br
Was born in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, on May, 1963.

He began his musical studies at Clóvis Salgado Foundation (Flute course with teacher Juvenal Dias - 1982/1986).

Robson studied musical composition in a self-taugh way. Since 1988, the artist has compositions played in important contemporary music festivals, like \"Ciclo de Música Contemporânea\".

He recorded in 1990 an album named \"Euthanasia?!\" with his own compositions.

Nowadays, he works at Symphonic Orchestra of Minas Gerais as a maintenance technician instruments and going on his works and researches about contemporary music.
http://www.robsound.mus.br/en/discography.htm

[Nova Spivack]

Here is a nice visualization of the Meme spread dataset -- http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2004_08_05_index.html#109172501214132452

Thanks Philipp!

[Nova Spivack]

That's because Google can take weeks to months to index new content!

[SB]

Well, maybe I'm doing this wrong -- but when I do a Google search with the shorter string, it does NOT find everything.

[Nova Spivack]

The long GUID was just stupid, there's no good reason for it -- we just picked a long random number, without really thinking too much about the pros and cons of the length. Hey it was the weekend and I was just fooling around! I'm very sorry! Anyway, the main goal was to make sure it would always be unique, so the longer the better. Anyway the feedback we got was that formatting in narrow blog layouts is more important than ultimate uniqueness! As for your second question -- sites that just post the GUID will simply be ignored in the results. The results will most likely be tabulated by automated bots (if there are lots of results) and they will do this by scraping the web pages that contain the GUID (or in fact any matching, unique string from the content of the Meme) and then looking for the survey fields and mining their content into a database. If the survey fields aren't there -- those sites will just be ignored in the data. So they won't skew the results.

[Steph-the-swiss-blogger]

What was the point of having such a long GUID?

Also, how about people who do not replicate the post, but just mention the meme and GUID, like here:

http://mediatic.blogspot.com/2004/08/etude-dun-meme-study-of-meme.html

Won't this also skew the results? The GUID is there, but none of the statistical info.

[Nova Spivack]

Hey everyone, check out the new meme! It's a new, improved, second-generation meme that rewards blogs for participation. Did you notice how the first meme got my blog into the 5th position in the Daypop Top 40 list? Well, now you can do the same thing -- in fact, we all can. Let's try it and see if it works. See the new meme at http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/a_new_meme_that.html

[Cathy]

Just let you know I post it in my Xanga account. Maybe we will get lucky and it spread throught there.

[steve]

Ok... I shoulda read it first, sorry I didn't notice. :)

Also, the permalink in the original message ( http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/a_sonar_ping_of.html ) also affects some blogs' formatting. (80 characters).

[Nova Spivack]

I've added a "short version" of the GUID to the original post, so you can replace the longer version of the GUID in your posts if you want, if that improves your formatting. See the original post for the revised text.

[Nova Spivack]

you can cut the GUID in half if you need to. We can still search for the first half, which itself should be unique.

[Steve]

I initially posted the item in my personal blog, but removed it soon after when I realized that it messed up my layout because of the length of the GUID.

[Steph-the-swiss-blogger]

Well, I'm spreading this meme, but I don't usually spread memes -- isn't this kind of behaviour going to skew results? I usually don't find memes interesting, so I don't follow up. This one, however, caught my interest.

What could be interesting (but less easy to analyze) is to add IDs to "normal memes".

[Nova Spivack]

GUID -- so I just saw that Google *is* indexing the full GUID! So I've reinstated it. Do a search, you will see 1 site has been indexed for it so far. Others will follow.

[Stephen Downes]

I will not be posting this item in either of my blogs (NewsTrolls http://www.newstrolls.com and OLDaily http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm ) because the length and the format of the posting required go completely against the format of these blogs.

This is therefore not an experiment in meme propogation but in meme replication, and as such, is as dependent on the nature of the meme as it is the nature of the blogosphere. Maybe more so.

As for hitting the top of Daypop (or Blogdex, where I found it), I have serious reservations about the integrity of those indices, as items that I know have been posted in more locations than are currently in their list do not show up in their top 40 (or 100, or whatever). many - probably most - sites are omitted from these calculations, and the usual 'A List' blogs are disproportionately represented.

[Adam Kalsey]

The problem with shortening the GUID is that Google doesn't search substrings. So if someone searches for the shortened GUID, they won't find pages containing the longer GUID.

[Nova Spivack]

Hi Susanna, your point is interesting. Actually this test is a precursor to some new technologies we are experimenting with related to the semantic web. I think in the future we will be able to do exactly what you suggest -- there will be ways to use this concept that integrate more seamlessly with the actual content of a blog. More on this later...

Nova

[Susanna]

The results of this could be interesting, but it seems to me that the method of the experiment could limit it to blogs which blog about blogging. For example, a blog about antique cars or water polo or Illinois politics might hesitate to confuse readers with a random post listing this information.

However, this post did make the Daypop Top 40, so clearly there are enough blogs out there meta enough to give this thing legs. I just wonder if there's another method of meme propagation that's subtler and wouldn't interfere with a blog's daily operations.

[Nova Spivack]

It will probably be a few days before Google indexes everyone, at the very least.

Also, I noticed that Technorati doesn't seem to return results for the GUID yet -- which is strange, because I *know* they index my blog and many others more frequently. So it could be a bug in Technorati actually -- I sent email to Dave about it.

[Peter]

Just added to my blog too (UK). I don't see any results on Google, but I guess that will take some propogation time too.

[B.K. DeLong]

Hmmmm. Searching using the GUID on either Technorati or Google gave no results.

[Nova Spivack]

If enough sites participate in this experiment, I will be offering a cash prize for the best visualization of the data-set. Let's see if enough sites participate to make the data-set rich enough to be interesting.

Nova

[Nova Spivack]

I shortened the GUID, but the shorter version is a subset of the longer one, so it will still work. I shortened it for better formatting on some blogs.