The Flow of Viral Video

Aug. 8, 2009— -- Why do some rumors spread like wildfire but burn out quickly, while others seem to smolder for years?

According to recently published physics research, it's all in the different ways people handle information.

Take the Web page of French champagne house Veuve Cliquot, for example. It features quite a cordial warning.

"Dear websurfer, A promotional deal is currently on the Net regarding a free offer of a case of 6 bottles of Veuve Cliquot champagne. This is a hoax, totally beyond our control ... We strongly condemn the author of this hoax and hope that it will end."

The warning refers to an email hoax that promised readers the case of champagne for forwarding the message, ostensibly as a reward for helping expand the company's email database. It's been circulating for more than four years. The disclaimer was added to the site over two years ago.

In recent years, researchers who study networks have suggested that information spreads like a viral epidemic, moving steadily through the social chain with a given incubation period for each infection.

Given the common assumption that, on average, people typically take a day to forward an email, persistent hoaxes like Veuve Cliquot should be impossible. So what's happening?

"Information is different, because it's valued by people," said Esteban Moro, a math professor at the University Carlos III of Madrid.

When an email pops up in our inbox, we make a quick decision whether to respond immediately or file it in a "do later" pile. Unlike a computer virus, which we can spread by simply opening an attachment, a funny video or chain letter requires us to make the decision whether to forward it, and when.

"[Information spread] is going to be affected by the way we schedule our tasks," Moro said.

Although the average delay between receiving an email and forwarding it on is about one day, actual response times tend toward extremes. About half of us answer an email within the first hour, while 20 percent take more than a week.