Rube Goldberg machines as Virals

Posted by Ricardo | Filed under General Commentary, Techniques

This post isn’t some clever analogy on Viral Marketing as Rube Goldberg machines (overengineered devices with a simple purpose, with chain reaction). Although if you think about, one could argue that sometimes in viral marketing you go to great lengths to produce a video and then seed it, just to have a result that also could be considered simple that is make someone watch it and passed it along.

rubenvent

But no, this isn’t that kind of post. In this post, I’m showing you first of all a great video that surfaced two days ago about a “wireless” Rube Goldberg machine, using RFID technology and bluetooth. One that, as the maker of the video say, “explores interactivity without touch”. It’s one of those videos that is just beautiful. And has 46 k views on Vimeo in 2 days.

Nearness from timo on Vimeo.

And exploring further the Rube Goldberg machine phenomenon as a viral video theme, there are other videos of this kind that have gone viral.

Of particular mention, is the next one with 1.6 million views:

This one, with also 1.6 million views: