Can Viral Cascades Be Predicted?

There’s a lot of information cycling around the Internet. Some things are only shared a few times, while others get shared millions of times. While going viral still seems like striking lightning, researchers at Cornell University may have cracked the code.

The researchers started with the basic premise of a cascade: When content is shared and reshared on social media, it cascades out to larger groups of people. When something goes viral, the cascade is wider, faster and reaches more people.