Two music phenomena, one powered by hate (Rebecca Black), the other by Coke & fans (Maroon 5)

As featured in my "Viral In a Nutshell" presentation on Tuesday morning (quick presentations for MediaVest team and clients), Rebecca Black's effort has also been doing the viral rounds (safe to say it's largely powered by people's dislike rather than love for the song). After the terrible news of the Japanese Tsunami, it was the largest trend on Twitter last week. Apparently it cost $2,000 to make this content. Some reports suggest she is making $27,000 in ad revenue a week - good ROI even if the sentiment is a little off!

Interesting to note that Lady GaGa has defended her (without actually listening to the track it seems) and already Rebecca's having interviews and is able to use her fame for good – donating to the Tsunami fund and planning a sequel (help us). It’s a real meme now too - here is a Bob Dylan style cover of the song.

It's still amazing to me how quickly good or bad content can travel through social media. She's been brave and kept her clip up and is standing up to the 'Haters.' If she can ride it out, I’m sure a career in reality TV or an advertising deal will come to her... endure/enjoy it yourself here and watch the real time trolling on tweetfeel.

On Tuesday evening (GMT), Maroon 5 and Coke (USA) began a live, 24 hr collaboration with fans through social media to inspire Maroon 5 to write a song, to be made available for download on April 1. Here's the site and edited highlights. Coke has provided unique access to a band and allowed its fans to be involved in the creative process. Plus they're sponsoring the #withmaroon5 hash tag. A big production, safe to say many multiples of $2,000.

Incidentally, Maroon 5 seem to be really open to new experiences with YouTube - like this collaboration with Kutiman, a remixer and DJ, where they supplied clips from their tour and he created a new song from it last year.

As you can see from the monitoring below (from 22-24 March), Rebecca Black has held the news focus and the Twitter agenda, despite #withMaroon5 being a promoted tweet.

What next for Rebecca?