Influence is Overrated

Jonah Peretti has spent the last six years creating viral hits, tracking online social behavior, and building technology to amplify buzz. He has been called a “viral marketing hotdog” by the New York Times, “the poster boy of guerilla media” by AlterNet, and was selected by Men’s Vogue as one of 13 American Visionaries. Peretti is currently developing a new platform called BuzzFeed designed to help good things win the online popularity contest.

Peretti co-founded HuffingtonPost.com and has consulted for Sony Pictures, Proctor & Gamble, and other leading brands. Peretti’s viral media experiments include the Nike sweatshop email, BlackPeopleLoveUs.com, the New York City Rejection Line, and FundRace.org. These projects started small but spread through word-of-mouth to millions, illustrating the practical application of 6-degrees of separation and tipping points.

Peretti is a graduate of the MIT Media Lab and has taught at NYU and the Parsons School of Design. His work has been covered by Time, the Economist, and Fortune and he has appeared as a guest on the Today Show, Good Morning America, and CNN. His most recent publication, “Viral Marketing for the Real World,” is in the May 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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