Check out this site – viralvideochart.com – which ranks the most popular online videos from YouTube, Google Videos etc. I see poor Miss South Carolina is still going strong..! I still haven’t been able to see it all the way through as the cringing got the better of me.

On another note, this list is interesting for those who ask themselves what it takes for video to go viral. The answer? Anything that’s REALLY hysterical, crazy, hilarious, unique, highly engaging etc (or involves someone famous perhaps.) The lesson for marketers? The same one most have already learned the hard way when assuming that any half-decent effort would simply go viral by default. Instead, if you add a “viral video” to the marketing mix on a campaign you had better have an excellent idea i.e. REALLY hysterical, crazy, unique etc. At the same time accept that your video probably won’t go viral – so don’t invest too heavily on it and make sure it supports other marketing activities and not the other way around.