Praise for VIRAL LOOP

USA Today Review

'Viral Loop' Shows How Viral Marketing Boosts Start-ups

By Kerry Hannon, Special for USA TODAY

Adam Penenberg's latest book, Viral Loop, is catching.

Penenberg, a professor of journalism at New York University, dizzily taps into the energy of the entrepreneurs who over the last decade and a half created some very successful Web-based businesses –Facebook, PayPal, Hotmail, to name a few. Their mode of operation: viral marketing, a method of product promotion that relies on getting customers to market an idea, product or service by telling their friends about it, usually by e-mail.

Penenberg's well-reported analysis of the viral landscape, from its history through its future promise, will resonate whether you plan to start a business, promote one online or simply are feeding off its offerings both as a consumer and a social butterfly... Through interviews with Web pioneers, and extensive use of books by other authors, magazine and newspaper articles, he weaves together an engaging tale of how viral businesses start, operate and ultimately make money (or will) in today's Web-savvy world of commerce and social networking.

Publishers Weekly Review

Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves
Adam L. Penenberg. Hyperion, $25.99 (288p) ISBN 9781401323493

"In this clear-eyed collection of case studies, Fast Company contributing writer and NYU journalism professor Penenberg examines the engine driving the growth of web 2.0 businesses like Flickr, YouTube and eBay to Facebook and Twitter: the viral loop. The concept behind a viral loop is simple—in order to use the product, you have to spread it, thus creating massive, user-driven growth cycles—after all, Penenberg explains, social networks like Facebook are worthless to a user if one’s friends aren’t also using the products. Viral loops are nothing new, of course, and Penenberg has certainly done his homework, tracing the concept back through its analog roots via entertaining and enlightening anecdotes about companies like Tupperware, which used “parties” to turn ordinary housewives into an army of sales reps, to Charles Ponzi—yes, he of the Ponzi scheme, a viral scam recently taken to historic levels by Bernie Madoff. Penenberg truly succeeds, however, in showing how the viral loop has found its groove on the Internet, fueling a wave of billion-dollar companies all built on word of mouth—and, of course, user clicks. Solidly researched and briskly-written, Penenberg at once captures a great business and tech story, as well as a defining moment in our online culture."

SmartMoney Magazine names Viral Loop as one of the "Seven Best Fall Reads." "Penenberg tells inspirational stories about companies achieving growth at such a phenomenal rate that you might be tempted to whip up your own business plan—or at least consult with your broker."

Small Business Trends calls Viral Loop "a must read... You’ll want to read this book slowly and surely page by page, chapter by chapter so that you can be sure to get every bit of viral history, company story and business model. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, you can’t afford to run a business in this economy without reading this book."

More praise...

"One of the most astounding things about the Web age is how the best advertising is often no advertising at all. Penenberg masterfully explains how this works with case studies of products that were designed to spread. Every product can use a dose of this technique; this is the book to get to learn how." --Chris Anderson, author of Free: The Future of a Radical Price, and The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More

"Adam Penenberg's lively book opens a window to all of our futures..." --Ken Auletta, author of Googled: The End of the World as We Know It

"Penenberg has unlocked the secret to the most successful digital businesses. An indispensable read." --Robert Safian, Editor-in-Chief, Fast Company

"If you want to understand all things viral, this is the place to start. Penenberg's reporting gives us a ringside seat for some of the biggest viral success stories in history, from Tupperware to Ning." --Dan Heath, co-author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

"Instead of entrusting your business to a guru with an agenda and a ghostwriter, you should be turning to a pro journalist like Adam Penenberg, who understands the way media and money interact, has the critical faculty to engage with these phenomena in an unbiased fashion, and the technical facility to explain them to you in an entirely engaging, informative, and actionable way." --Douglas Rushkoff, author of Media Virus and Life Inc: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back

"Penenberg discovers the perpetual motion machine for business and marketing... Buy this book. Catch a virus. Make a fortune." --Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do