Who told you about Susan Boyle?

One of this week’s most widely reported and talked about stories has been the appearance of Susan Boyle, a 47 year-old singer from Scotland, on the show Britain’s Got Talent. If you haven't seen Susan or heard of her meteoric rise to internet fame where have you been?! Susan has taken the World by storm and in only a few days has become one of the biggest viral hits of all time. According to Visible Measures and Mashable Susan Boyle related videos had achieved 93.2 million views by 10pm ET (USA) on Sunday.

How did everyone find out about it? Word of mouth used to be a face to face recommendation however with social networks such as facebook and twitter the reach has increased exponentially while the personal recommendation remains. Obviously this is one of the advantages of social media and I am not telling you anything new. In the case of Susan Boyle it is great to see a good news story getting the treatment. As the people at Domino's know only too well it is usually the bad experiences and the detractors which get the attention.

The tendency to spread bad news is human nature and is beautifully illustrated by Mario Vellandi in response to a challenge by David Armano on the Logic & Emotion blog.



Perhaps bad news travels well as it is inherently more interesting, shocking, confronting. Whatever the reason it is great to see the SBP (Susan Boyle Phenomenon) spread across a variety of networks solely on the basis of the underdog coming good. Best of luck Susan although I doubt you'll need it.