pepelicious

I'm not sure if the premise is built around friend selection so much as it would be built around the same trust you place in a friend when looking for a service recommendation or product referral. It's not about enlarging your circle of friends based on their product preferences; it's more about an advertiser being able to leverage your tastes and the tastes of your existing circle of friends.

My friend Bob says he likes to use Moogoo shampoo. I'm not happy with my current shampoo and am looking for alternatives. Hmmm. Maybe I'll try Moogoo based on Bob's preference.

Same thing happens on a local level when you ask a friend where they get their car fixed or ask about that new restaurant that opened a week ago.

noodleman

mandarin

mandarin

The other thing is some complete stranger contacted me on MySpace to tell me how cool she thought this band was and to check it out. From my reading, I know some of the record labels are attempting to replicate viral marketing, but spam is spam even when it's personally authored spam. Needless to say, I didn't check out the band.

elvenjewel

When friends show me their latest purchases, I'm just as likely to say something like "what were you thinking?" as "oh, that's so nice!".

Ok, so maybe I have fewer friends as a results, and those I have are thick skinned. I can live with that. But maybe, just maybe, the marketing types who are all stroking each other over the brilliance of things like Facebook will learn a lesson about people, even "average" people, who don't like being treated like mindless sheep.

If you build a REALLY good product it WILL sell itself by word of mouth. That doesn't mean that an average product, or a product that has been around longer than most of us have will also benefit from "viral" techniques.

macbeach

kompression