A recent article about YouTube reveals that 50,000 videos are uploaded a day, and 50 million are viewed. This ratio has changed, no doubt, over time. But that basically means the average views per video should be around 1000. Most videos, however, never surpass 10-100 views. Others get more than 10 million.
So what’s the secret recipe to getting a viral video?
- Start with 1 pound of good video content- ideally short and minimally packaged.
- Stir some initial enthusiasm that yields to high views and votes. Here’s where self promotion and luck can enhance the meal.
- Bake and hope that a few Bloggers point to your video. For example, in my first YouTube success, Googlehead went from 5,000 views last night to 8,000 this morning- I have MicroPersuasion to thank for much of that.
- Remove from oven and let cool. Hope that someone at YouTube decides to feature it.
- Serve warm. Once a video is popular it hits “tipping point.” People want to watch popular videos, so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Again- if the system works right, the best videos are the most popular. In my opinion, that isn’t necessarily happening yet. I’ve seen some great stuff burried with no views and some videos on the “most popular” that have me as puzzled as when mullets were popular.
Want a nice collection of popular viral videos? Check out this Wikipedia 
So there's a lot of debate as to whether this is a hoax or not, but you decide for yourself. It convinced me. Here, friends, is one of the most viral clips of the past month or so. 
As web videos and television videos lose their distinction, we're obviously going to see some online videos that are series. Here's the first I've uncovered. It's called "
