Viral Videos, Internet Memes And The Value Of Online Anonymity

How do ideas spread? Why do people come together online to make things go viral? The answer might surprise you.

At last year’s TED conference, I had the pleasure of seeing Christopher "moot" Poole (founder of the infamous and awesome 4Chan platform) discuss why people do things online (from getting ideas to spread to LOlCats). A large portion of his discussion focuses on the notion of anonymity (more on that here: The Next Big Thing Online Could Well Be Anonymity). In a world where every Marketer is looking to better understand who their consumer is because they are self-identifying themselves in spaces like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, it’s important to think about what anonymity means online, and the sheer brute force of change and influence that comes from a very vocal minority, that looks a lot like a majority through the power of anonymity and mass collaboration.

In a Social Media world, where we focus on core values like openness, transparency and personal brand, what do you think about this…