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Viral Marketing

Page history last edited by Bloody Mary 14 years, 2 months ago

Viral marketing

The 10 most annoying online viral marketing campaigns of all time - Features - PC Authority

When Annoying Emails Go Viral It Came From Kijuju What the heck is Kijuju? One of the most annoying, confusing viral campaigns.

Have you ever seen an email, post or site with what seems like unbelievably cute ideas or content, coming from or at least endorsing a business, and telling you to "pass it on" "send to friends" "share the" whatever it is they're trying to get you to spread?

That is viral marketing, therefore a chain letter.

When Annoying Emails Go Viral

Oddcast a great site with a fun text to speech demo is also an admittedly viral company that uses several online fun activities to promote other businesses.

Pick A Cake Takes The Cake when chain letters are made from the content of very good sites such as Northpole.com.

Disney Parks Video Web Site Chain Letter Elf Yourself

Givoogle is a sketchy viral scheme that claims to raise money for charity dependent on how many banner ad views their sponsors get. It claims to give money to the American Cancer Society.

Traffic Sworda viral pyramid scheme site was advertised on Craigslist which has become rather notorious for what it lets in and keeps out. Trader Joe's in Fortuna

Viral Linking Bad For Your Blog's Health

MLM Pyramid Scheme Viral Social Networks

MyLot.com social network site that uses referrals and "earnings" to virally grow its userbase.

Tagged is another web site that says "chat, flirt, photos, games and more!" with flirting being the second suggestion, it could be more of a dating site rather than a social network, but there are definitely viral aspects to this site as well. It offers you a way to communicate with other users, but that's not all. You also get points for referring/inviting others to use it. It forces users to enter enough information so that it can spam that user's webmail contacts with invites to the Tagged service, without the user's knowledge or consent. In addition, users are forced to consent to receiving junkmail as part of Tagged's terms of service. So Tagged is an information/harvesting, spamming operation. Snopes EWeek McAfee all warn against using Tagged. Tagged got tagged by the state of New York for its email chain spamming.

Then there's Yuwie Yuwie..Scam or serious? this site argues that Yuwie isn't a scam because people aren't actually losing any money simply by going to the site, and that Yuwie does offer a real social network. But that hardly matters. The fact remains it is still a viral pyramid scheme, a site that claims to pay you for using it. Again, it's based on how many users you can recruit to use the site, and as with all mony chain letter pyramid schemes, the only ones to really make it rich would be the ones at the very top, the ones who originate the scheme in the first place. yuwie Social networking gone very wrong Webware Cool Web apps for everyone - CNET Top 5 Ways Yuwie Can Ruin Your Life - Associated Content yuwie The Not-So-Promising Numbers

Lockerz, Points2Shop, Freeprizes, etc. this site is discussing how to get people to joinLockerz and Xylok suggests sending a chain email with invites to all your contacts. The Tech Guya also advertises Lockerz on his blog. Someone else advertised YourPrizesFree probably a similar pyramid scheme to Lockerz and Yuwie. This site says Lockerz is probably a scam but Points2Shop is not. Right...Both are pyramid schemes. and Points2Shop sounds as annoying as Zynga on Facebook. Lockerz, scam or shazam « ownage point

Zenzuu Klikot All exactly the same mlm pyramid scheme as Yuwie, Tagged, Lockerz etc. It's all about referrals, referrals, more referrals, and trying to collect the biggest number of members. The hook? MAKE FAST CASH! The catch? You have to recruit people to join these sites.

Social Games

Why "Social" Games Suck

Why Zynga Sucks Short answer: Viral "social games" AKA chain letters! No matter how it's dressed up, it's all basically the same game, with different settings. Mafia/Mob Wars lets you get points and property by inviting friends and buying stuff with fake money. Farmville and Yoville does the same only it's a farm or town setting and the virtual stuff is farm animals, pets etc. instead of weapons. With Vampire Wars, it's levelling up for more points and better vampy powers. The main aim with viral games such as the ones Zynga puts out is to collect as many users as they can by telling them how much fun they'll have while delivering no real fun yet keeping the users hooked and believing they really are having fun.

The viral pseudo-game nonsense started on Facebook with applications likeZombies but didn't stop other new viral nuissances from coming.

Then came the farm craze. Farm Town started out as a Facebook game and the biggest viral nuissance since the 25 Random Things meme in early 2009. Everyone was into Farm Town until June 2009. Then along came the dreaded Farmville surpassing Farm town in its viral-ness, and becoming the biggest social networking game in North America. Then along came Lil Farm Life and Farm Pals Sheesh, farmity-farm farm farm. What next? Farmvillage, Farmstreet, Farmavenue, Farmroad, Farmway, Farmcountry, Farmstate, Farmprovince, Farmcontinent, My Farm, Farmheights, Farmcity, Farmcycle,Farmgifts, Farmwars, Farmpatch, Send A Farm, FarmHuggles, Farmkisses, What's Your Inner Farm? What's Your Farm Name? What Type of Farm Are You and What's Your Farm quizzes? Win A Farm in a Farm Lotto?

What's more, Farmvill refuses to be blocked! You can block the main application, sort of, but friends still upload their farmy photos and for some reason, that still shows up in the feed. If that wasn't bad enough, Farmville is taking over other applications too. Farmville now has a quiz and causes yes, of all things, causes! Apparently this is because people are so addicted that they want to send more and more, AND MORE Farmville virtual gifts! If you are using the Causes application for other causes, this means you might, will, or already be getting Farmville cause clutter in the news-feed, and possibly requests from your Farmville-addicted friends.! The quiz is just another way to feed this Farmville addiction that goes completely beyond comprehension. Talk about viral marketing!

That's not all! There is Farmville Decorations Gift and Get A Second Chicken Coop

How many spin-offs of this viral epidemic crop up untill and if this craze ever dies down is anyone's guess. One thing is clear, Farmville just keeps coming and keeps coming like a plague of locusts and all one can do is block what can be blocked, and risk suffering the massive onslaught of the gargantuan viral fad by friends who haven't a clue how annoying it is, or leave Facebook for an extended amount of time.

Farmville Sucks!

Watch what might be the beginning of the end for misleading offers on Facebook and other social games Wayne Schulz /Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell Freemium kSocial: a Simple Equation Scamville: The Seedy Side of Freemiums Second Life's virtual economy over $500M a year - San Francisco Business Times Zynga Takes Steps to Remove Scams From Games and Rockyou Joins the No-Scams Parade MediaPost Publications Will Spore Spread On Facebook 11-06-2009

another article about Farmville and cash from underage users scamville New Offerpal CEO Admits Mistakes, Makes Bold Promises but WAIT! Horrible Things Slink Back Into Zynga - washingtonpost.com That is, the scams remain there if you're just a regular user and you're not known to them for exposing their scams yet. Zynga Launches FishVille — How Big Will This Virtual Aquarium Game Get First Farmville, now Fishville? Heaven help us, where will it end?

Look out! Here comes another "social game" EA's Spore Evolves Once More, Launches On Facebook - washingtonpost.com

Twitter viral games Spy Master co-founded by Eston Bond, is a viral Twitter game that encourages users to increase their ranking/power and spy stuff by recruiting their friends into their spy ring. Naturally, it's addictive for some people who are not aware or simply indifferent to the viral factor if it's packaged up as a game. But it is seriously annoying to people who dislike viral schemes. Joe Stump sees the application for what it is when he compares Spy Master to the Zombies chain letter application on Facebook, and the Super Poke with its notorious sheep-toss, and calling Spy Master a spam-based viral application. Eric Eldon suggests maybe Spy Master should be renamed Spam Master, and Twitter needs a way for its users to filter out and block such viral pests without having to unfollow their friends. Spy VS. Spy

Which Hogwarts Teacher Are You? quiz from RoflQuiz.com "Rofl? Not so much. It's another viral application site for Twitter.

Tweetergetter by Gary McCaffrey and Tweet Penguin are giant Twitter chain letter pyramid scheme sites, not involving money. Tweetergetter claims you can get over thousands of followers in 30 days. Tweetpenguin says you will get more followers, with the focus being more on a custom page displayed with your interests and the interests of others. all you have to do is fill out the form with your Twitter account information, that would be your user-id and password for Twitter. In addition, you can fill out the interests section on the Tweetpenguin form. Then hit the "Tweet now!" button on Tweetergetter, or the "Make it so!" button on Tweetpenguin to follow the six tweeters listed in the form. On Tweetergetter, All of them are checkmarked and it is impossible to uncheck them. Of course, Gary MacCaffrey is included in the users you must follow. On Tweetpenguin, it appears you can uncheck those you don't wish to follow. This combined with the added option to fill in your interests and see others interests, makes Tweetpenguin appear to be the better of the two The scheme is that you'll get listed in the form after you fill it out and "Tweet now" or "Make it so!" so others will follow you when they want to use these sites to get a lot more followers. Tweetpenguin also says it claims it doesn't store your Twitter account information. There is no such assurance from Tweetergetter, and you are also warned not to copy anything from the Tweetergetter site - they call that "plagiarism." They claim Copyscape will detect it. a post and discussion about Tweeter Getter Other tweet/following chain scheme web sites include Twitter Follower by John Chow Tweepular Xaviermedia Need Followers

The spamwatch on Twitter soundly discourage using this type of site to get more followers, saying they may be scams and info collectors. Article on mass-tweet/following schemes Sure enough, there was a huge increase in Twitter spammers, which lead to a lot of coverage about the problem, and the use of tools such as Tweetblock. What good are a bunch of followers when they turn out to be spammers?

4chan infests Twitter 4chan/Encyclopedia Dramatica drips originated the Advice Dog application meme chain 4chan and Encyclopedia Dramatica are interchangeable. They are sites for trolls, spammers, chain letter originators and perpetuators, pornos, bullies, in other words, losers.

David Alston originated the Twitter Secret chain letter

This article warns against a Twitter-phishing, viral, user-collecting, malware-spreading site called Twittercut.

The 6Links is another viral chain for getting traffic to your site. It appears to be targetting businesses rather than just individuals.

Frenemy College Prowler created a viral marketing campaign on Facebook with deceptive class of 2013 groups

Mouthshut.com is a consumer review site that is also viral, but they have some very iffy, heavy-handed terms of service that allows them to monopolize anything users put on their site. In particular, the "Submission and Ownership of Content:" and " "License:" where you are told you're not allowed to post your content anywhere else, and "Pursuit of Violators:" which shows Mouthshut's zeal to use you and your content in a money-grab. It's "Removal of Opinions:" allows it to do whatever it wants, including refusing to delete anything of yours at your request, or removing your ability to edit your own content. These terms appear to give Mouthshut all the advantages it needs over its userbase so it can get away with mistreating its users. Mouthshut and vicious chain mail tarnishing reputations.

After the tragic wild fires in Australia in 2009 that took so many human lives came viral videos of cute, pitiful, thirsty koalas soliciting donations to animal activist groups. Kofi Annan's viral "climate change" propaganda video chain letter

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