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1997 Paper: The special catalyst for Hotmail's torrid growth is called "Viral Marketing" (dfj.com)
1 point by zaidf on March 26, 2007 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments



Key from the article:

"In our next meeting, Tim Draper suggested that they should append an advertising message to every outbound email: "P.S. Get your free email at Hotmail. It was very contentious at the time. Would users balk at having this automatic addition to the content of their private messages?"

For someone who first touched the Internet in 1997, it is very interesting to have actually seen the evolution of viral marketing over 10 years.


This must be what Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia meant when he complained in Founders at Work that DFJ had claimed they'd invented his idea.




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