The Give List was an idea that pairs the powerhouse of the social aspect of the web with an idea to do good, to reconnect with society.
To move away from our consumer driven me, me ,me, want, want , want society. A way of giving back without spending oodles of cash.
The social web was built for this sort of project, one that gathers its content from the users and the users spread the word virally. The users themselves power the idea and make or break it. They truly are the engine behind the idea and with web 2.0 the ideas can spread like wild fire and this idea took of immediately and got lots of interest, views, tweets and contributions within hours of going live.
With how the web has evolved ideas can become viral within hours or minutes however this sort of viral campaign is obviously very difficult to design. Many corporate entities try to design viral campaigns and many of their ads, mockumentaries and fake videos are designed for this very purpose. To get something to go viral and then ride on the back of that exposure by building brand awareness or perhaps promoting a new product.
As with most conceived viral campaigns these usually fail. If the public realise that you are manufacturing something to go viral they will usually ignore it, internet marketing strategies like these are being used more and more by companies. And they are becoming increasingly adept at spotting these fake videos or campaigns. Many companies even hide the fact that they are publishing a viral campaign despite it being against various regulations.
True viral campaigns can be small or large, it does not take millions of hits for something to be deemed a successful viral campaign. If the campaign spreads under its own steam to a particular target audience it is viral. The difference with the givelist is that it actually drew much of the content from the users as well and used sites like twitter to explode the message and to get users generating the content of the gift list. The users also voted for the best ideas again allowing the users to interact with the site, its content and ultimately its direction. A true social media experiment that worked in every way (in my opinion).
I believe we will see more and more of these social issues being powered by user generated content and the viral effect. What I would like to see is more ofthese ideas to come from standard web users and web surfers rather than industry professionals. The web gives everyone to share their voice and the net allows that voice to be heard all over the world, look at small sites like the rocket spanish review sites. The growth of Facebook and Twitter has allowed people to share their content easily and amazingly quickly. If that content hits a chord with the audience it gets shared again and again at an alarming multiply rate. We no longer rely on mass forwarded emails, hurrah for web 2.0