Going Viral
"Viral" The concept of an object being able to reproduce itself or convert other objects into copies of itself when other objects are exposed to it.The concept of something being viral came into vogue just after the Internet became widely popular in the mid to late 1990's. An object, even a non-material object, is considered to be viral when it has the ability to spread copies of itself or change other similar objects to become more like itself when those objects are simply exposed to the viral object. While the concept definitely, (and originally), applies to biological viri (viruses) it is more commonly used to describe mostly how thoughts, information and trends move though and into a human population.
- Memes. Memes are possibly the most extreme example of a viral object.
- viral marketing
- Clothing Fashion trends
- viral email
- viral reccomendations
- Blogging
An example of an object which has been accused of being viral, but which is not is the GNU General Public License (GPL). see GNU General Public License for a rundown an the actual properties of the GPL.