The Susan Boyle Effect - How Twitter is Revolutionizing the Way Videos go Viral

A week ago no one had ever heard of Susan Boyle. Today, the 47-year-old woman from West Lothian, Scotland, is the hottest sensation in online video thanks to her performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables on Britain’s Got Talent last weekend. In the last week, “Susan Boyle” has dominated CastTV’s Twitter Videos, a real-time measure of videos being shared on Twitter. (Tweets must include a link to the video to be measured by CastTV)

Saturday April 11th: Britain’s Got Talent airs @ 8 PM London time, noon in San Francisco.
Sunday morning April 12th in SF - 100+ new Susan Boyle tweets every hour.
Today, Wednesday morning April 15th in SF - 200+ new tweets every hour for close to 10,000 Susan Boyle video mentions.

Pretty mind-blowing for a woman who put aside dreams of a singing career to care for her ailing mother and claims to “never have been kissed.” Before microblogging services like Twitter, a video like this might take a month to hit the Top Viral Videos chart. But now, after praise from celebrity twitterers like Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, Susan Boyle has become a household name in less than a week. Will her online popularity continue to skyrocket or has Boyle mania peaked? Hard to say, she seems to have captured the hearts of even the most cynical twitterers such as @tomkimmerer “I finally watched the Susan Boyle video, not expecting much. She has the most amazing, astonishing voice.”