

You Can't Force Viral Marketing - DuqE
http://www.awdp.org/articles/238/You-Can%27t-Force-Viral-Marketing

======
edw
This reminds me of yesterday's item for Hired For. I went to
<http://newyork.hiredfor.com> and entered my e-mail address, so that I could
be put on their _exclusive_ invite list. (Their italics.) After submitting the
form, I got this:

"Thanks! Want to get an early invitation? Invite at least 3 friends using the
link below. The more friends you invite, the sooner you'll get access!"

Jesus Effing Christ. You just took my neutral-to-positive attitude toward you
and pissed all over it with your greedy social media whoring.

I don't know who you are, Hired For. I am not about to tell my friends (or
even my internet "friends") to visit your site unless I'm willing to vouch for
it, and the only way you're going to get me to vouch for it is to, I don't
know, _let me use it_.

Coerced sharing is not sharing.

~~~
DuqE
I agree, alot of new startups are working on using similar social media
'whoring' as you put it. It seems to be a great way to generate a bit of buzz.
Connect.me used a similar technique and had thousands of registrations with in
hours and a new startup for startups called Launchrock.com is essentially a
holding page application designed for this exact role.

~~~
edw
I see an opportunity for a lifestyle business focused on providing start-ups
with teaser sites like this that are tied in with social media bots and so-
forth to efficiently exploit bleeding-edgers.

