GoMeme 2.0 - Help Test This Meme

Note: This experiment is now finished.

GoMeme 2.0 -- Copy This GoMeme From This Line to The End of this article, and paste into your blog. Then follow the instructions below to fill it out for your site.

Steal This Post!!!! This is a GoMeme-- a new way to spread an idea along social networks. This is the second generation meme in our experiment in spreading ideas. To find out what a GoMeme is, and how this experiment works, or just to see how this GoMeme is growing and discuss it with others, visit the Root Posting and FAQ for this GoMeme at www.mindingtheplanet.net .

By adding this GoMeme to your Weblog you can get higher Google rankings for your site, and help your friends get higher Google rankings too. Your blog will be linked from every other blog that discovers this GoMeme downstream from your blog (from your readers, their readers, and so on). And that will raise your Google rankings in proportion to the number of downstream bloggers that get this GoMeme from you and post it to their blogs. The more people who blog the GoMeme from your blog, the better your Google rankings will get.

By hosting this meme on your blog, you will also be participating in an experiment to generate a distributed Blog survey and test how memes spread through social networks. The dataset from this experiment is public, open and decentralized -- every blog that participates hosts their own data about their own blog. Anyone can then get the whole dataset by just searching Google for this unique string: 98818912959q This code is the "global unique identifier," or GUID for this GoMeme -- it marks every web page that participates in this GoMeme so that it can later be found with all the others. (Note it may take a week or longer before Google indexes your blog, so be patient).

Disclaimer

This is purely an experiment and is just for fun. We are really just curious to see what will happen and this is not a commercial project. Participation is voluntary. We don't mean to annoy anyone. However, if you don't have much curiosity, or at least a sense of humor, you may find this experiment to be upsetting. In that case, you might try drinking a good strong cup of coffee. If after that you are still unhappy with us, just don't read any further and have a great day! (If you don't want your blog to get better Google rankings, that's purely your choice!) On the other hand, if you are interested in exploring new technologies and pushing the envelope, then keep reading and we look forward to your participation in this experiment. We also request that participants in this experiment refrain from spamming anyone with this GoMeme. To spread it, just put it on your blog; that should be enough.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR ADDING THIS GOMEME TO YOUR OWN SITE

Step 1 First, to add your site to this experiment, copy the GoMeme to your site from the "Copy This GoMeme From Here" heading above to the End of this article. Please copy this whole article and try not to alter the text so that it is authentic for the people who get it from your blog. If you would like to come up with your own catchy headline, or anything else to help your GoMeme spread, feel free! Let's see what works best.

Step 2: Now, fill in your answers to these Required Survey Fields (Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers). These will later be automatically data-mined by bots to compile the survey results.

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

(2) I found this GoMeme on date (day/month/year):03/08/04

(3) I found this GoMeme at time (in GMT format): 01:00:00

(4) I foundit via "Newsreader Software" or "Browsing the Web" or "Searching the Web" or "An E-Mail Message": Browsing the Web

(5) I posted this GoMeme at my URL (use a hyperlink): Minding the Planet

(6) I posted this on date (day/month/year): 03/08/04

(7) I posted this at time (in GMT format): 01:00:00

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

Step 3: If you're feeling very altruistic today, also fill in these optional survery fields (Replace the answers below with your own answers):

(9) My Weblog is hosted by: Typepad

(10) My age is: 35

(11) My gender is: Male

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

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

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

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

(16) My web browser is: IE

(17) My operating system is: Windows XP

Step 4:Now add an entry for your site after the last entry in the PATH LIST below:
Your entry should be of the form: line number, URL, hyperlink, optional personal GUID for your blog.

(Note: If you would like to track all postings of the Meme that result from your posting of it, once Google has indexed them, you may add your own optional GUID after your hyperlink on your line of the Path List -- just make sure it is short, unique, and doesn't return any results on Google -- for example "mysitename137a2r28". Also note, if the path list gets too long, you should still try to include the whole path in your blog -- even if you have to put the list on a continuation page rather than the excerpt for your posting -- and make sure others copy the whole GoMeme along with your Path List when they get the GoMeme from you -- If they don't copy it, your blog and your upstream blogs won't be linked from their blogs).

PATH LIST

1. http://www.mindingtheplanet.net Minding The Planet, mindingtheplanet14798
2. (your Path List entry goes here in the form URL, hyperlink, GUID. Also, please add a new line after this one, for the next person.)

The End

You did it! Now spread it! If all goes well and others find this GoMeme from your blog, you should see some interesting results. Please comment back on the original post and tell us how you're doing or what you observe, if anything noteworthy happens.

Comments

[alex]

Nice design.

[Nova Spivack]

My commenting system is courtesy of Typepad -- I'm not sure I can do anything about it. It is their code and seems to be a bit broken sometimes.

[Nick]

Especially if they are as confused as I apparently was with your commenting system.

[Nick]

It will work best if bloggers with medium to low amounts of links who get loured by technorati. Apparently, the more bewildered they are the better. Memes are always most powerful when one is confused.

[Nick]

This latest meme might need a jumpstart, people might spread it if offered pre-emptive links through technorati. This would work best if offered to bloggers who are on the lower to middle end of inbound links. It might also shoove the meme outside of our immuned enviroment. Here is how it could work: say somewhere within this, or another post, you provide a list of links to unsuspecting bloggers. You don't ask for a permalink in return, but you ask them to post the meme on their blog in return for the nice looking link on technorati (not in the sidebar, but in some random post). That way, they'll come here bewildered (putting them in a perfect state to be most receptive to the meme), probably get a laugh out of the post, and than get offered a compensatory link to jumpstart to the meme. Its not a full plan, but its a start of one.

[Nick]

This latest meme might need a jumpstart, people might spread it for a pre-emptive link, and more importantly it might eventually get outside of our immuned enviroment. So say somewhere within the post, you post about 40 different links to unsuspecting bloggers. You don't ask for a permalink in return, but you ask them to post the meme on their blog to get it going. That way, they'll come here bewildered, probably get a laugh out of the post, and than get offered a compensatory link to jumpstart to the meme. Its not a full plan, but its part of one. What do you think?

[Nova Spivack]

Brainstorming for GoMeme version 3.0....

I think the vast majority of bloggers were not exposed to the first meme -- so the question is really how to reach new communities? Instead of trying to get the meme to folks who may already be immunized, the meme would be more successful in new territory.

But in addition to the above, here are some other concepts we could explore:

- Leverage competition. How about a meme-competition? For example, there is a common replicating core, but it's up to you to design your own shell! Whoever makes the most successful shell wins. Maybe a cash prize?

- Leverage negativity. Make a meme that is an anti-meme, designed to target those who hate the meme and or are immune or overexposed. This meme is against memes, and spreads because it appears to be anti-meme. It might have a slogan like "Death to Memes!" or something. Of course it itself is another meme!

- Leverage a cause. Make the meme stand for something really important to everyone.

- Leverage humor. Jokes are great viral coats for ideas.

- Make it more useful. Raising Google rankings is pretty compelling. But maybe there are other benefits of hosting GoMeme 3.0

- Be more parasitic by colonizing other postings. How about making the meme raise the profile of your *postings* rather than your whole blog. So it's a thing that you can add into a given posting on your blog that makes that posting more visible -- sort of like a link exchange concept. You add this to a post on your blog, and a link to your posting is randomly added to posts on other blogs in the network. In turn your post contains links to other posts in the network. It could be added in by a script and dynanimically generated whenever the post is loaded. A "link mob" concept.

[Nova Spivack]

This meme is evolving in real time! The original post is linked from the meme. If someone ends up at the first generation meme, there is language there that redirects them to the new one.

[Steph-the-swiss-blogger]

Whee, holy confusion! What is the original post now? this one? The explanations seem to have gotten really long!