Review: Viral Loop: The Power of Pass-it-on by Adam L. Penenberg

This book is a fun read if you want to hear the stories of a number of viral companies and products. However, if you want to learn how to create something viral of your own, you won’t find it here. The writing is a bit boring and cliche; the tiny overviews of psychology and sociology are shallow and feel like padding; and while many of the “case studies” are classics and worth learning about, a few feel out of date and obsolete (e.g. the book touts Ning and Open Social as the next big thing).

But most importantly, the book is flawed, because a) it claims that virality gives you totally free growth, whereas the reality is that building virality into a product is not free and very tricky to do and b) it offers no insight as how to actually build that virality into a product. In short, despite some entertaining anecdotes, most of which have been retold in hundreds of other books and blog posts, this book is not worth reading.

Rating: 2 stars