One of the great ironies of word of mouth is that we don’t want to talk about popular things. We want to be special. We want to be first. We want to be smarter.
How did Gmail get so big? Because you were only allowed to invite 5 friends.
Customers suddenly felt important. They had the power to decide which friends got an invitation. They made sure that those friends really signed up, so no invitation was wasted. It felt good to be an insider.
Are you being too easy?