viral

The relative peace of these first three days back in the office has given me far too many opportunities to procrastinate on the rather impressive email mountain that's appeared in my inbox over the holidays. In a further, and I'd like to think, rather productive attempt to put off tackling this I cast an email out to the sages of the uk-netmarketing list hunting for 2008 predictions for digital media, either those they'd found online or, if brave enough, any of their own.

In the TV business, there's a lot of discussion, some might say nooise, about user-generated content and how it can be harnessed to create "TV". I'm sure it's one of the topics that we'll tackle at the next Chinwag Live debate, Web TV Takeover.

Chinwag has been asked to help with the Comic Relief 'Viral Challenge', a great competition for the great and the good of the new media world to put their wits to the test on behalf of a good cause. The shortlisted entries will appear on Comic Relief's Red Nose Day website in the next few days.

The latest edition of Iconocast, the San Francisco-based trendwatching newsletter asks whether marketing effectiveness, regardless of media, is dropping. Common sense dictates that with the plethora of media opportunities available, we're all being exposed by so many marketing messages that it's not surprising we're ignoring more and more of them.

Viral Marketing: 6 Point Plan
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - June 29, 2001

Viral Marketing Case Studies
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - May 11, 2001

Just exactly how do you go about 'viral marketing'? Who has been successful using this technique in the past, and more to the point does it actually work or is it more Internet bluster? Lisa Wood asked, "After his epochal rise to status of online marketing guru it seems there's now a Seth Godin viral marketing backlash and the unbelievers are questioning the effectiveness of viral marketing campaigns.

Effective Viral Marketing
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - January 18, 2001

To many it's the online marketing holy grail. An effective marketing campaign that once an initial (carefully planned, naturally) seed has been sewn, spreads like wildfire. They're notoriously difficult to achieve and sometimes happen by accident, but the effects can be enormous. Just ask Claire Swire.