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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

Word of mouth works best when there is a definite incentive to talk about it. If I tell you about <xyz>, you benefit, but so do I.

This is the basis of the entire MLM industry. There are many other good examples, too. (Refer 10 friends, get a discount.) Not everyone likes it, but it works.

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An incentive may not be required, but it definitely helps.

For example: I joined PayPal 10 years ago because my friend coaxed me into it. PayPal paid me $5 for joining and paid my friend $5 for inviting me. We invited lots of people..

On the other hand, consider GMail. It was just so massively superior to anything else out there that as soon as I heard about it I was hooked. GMail was (and is) free, but back then people were actually paying for invites..

The incentive in the GMail case is still there. If you think your action makes a friend better off, then the action is valuable to you. Whether this act stems from intrinsic selfishness or benevolence, is left for another time :-)

Anyway, I doubt anybody really thinks about this before coaxing their friends, but broadly speaking "so do I" holds true.

I think viral growth should be considered separate from word of mouth. And if you do make that distinction then there are very few products which became successful through word of mouth. Original Google Search, Napster come to mind, and maybe Gmail (like the sibling suggests, though not clear if it's really a commercial success). Note that all of the above gave out huge value for free.

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