Let's just add in a little virality It happens all the time. I’m meeting with an entrepreneur, who is telling me about a really innovative product idea for a consumer website. And I’m liking it. We’re going back and forth on product ideas. And before I know it, we’re approaching the end of our meeting. I then ask them, “So, how are you going to acquire customers.” The most disappointing answer is when they say “Oh, we’ll just make it viral.” Virality is something that has to be engineered from the beginning…and it’s harder to create virality than it is to create a good product. That’s why First Round Capital’s website has always said: “Too many companies treat marketing and sales as a tactical afterthought. Customer acquisition (also called distribution) is the number one challenge facing consumer web properties.
Social Media Gets Professional Agostini v. Felton - Religious Freedom Page R.A. and other teenagers allegedly made and burned a cross on the lawn of the black family that lived across the street. R.A. was charged with disorderly conduct under the St. Paul Bias Motivated Crime Ordinance, which prohibits the displaying of symbols, objects, graffiti, etc. that one "knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in other on the basis or race, color, creed, religion, or gender." The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the statute was not too broad and unallowably content based, and thereby not a violation of the First Amendment because the statute was limited to "fighting words" which are not constitutionally protected anyway. The Court, with no Justices dissenting, ruled that the statute is unconstitutional, as it is a clear violation of the First Amendment. The Court must adhere to the construction of the Minnesota Court, and we accept their ruling that the statute only pertains to "fighting words."
The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing Editor’s Note: Dr. Wilson first published this article in 2000. He then updated it in 2005. I admit it. But you have to admire the virus. In a few short generations, a virus population can explode. Viral Marketing Defined What does a virus have to do with marketing? Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as “word-of-mouth,” “creating a buzz,” “leveraging the media,” “network marketing.” The Classic Hotmail Example The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free web-based email services. Give away free email addresses and services;Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: “Get your private, free email at stand back while people email to their own network of friends and associates;Who see the message;Sign up for their own free email service; and thenPropel the message still wider to their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates. Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Fourteen Social Media Disasters: Learning from the mistakes ... Social media can work wonders for your brand, but it can also spell disaster. A colleague recently asked me for a list of examples of where the wrong post or tweet has damaged a brand’s reputation. I had a few examples on the top of my head, but thought I would do some extra research on the side to see what else I could find. After some research, I produced a deck titled “Social Media 101: Social Media Disasters”. I’ve loaded the deck to Slideshare and have embedded it here: Examples of bad social media can be tracked back to a focus on social media governance by companies. Lack of real-time monitoringNot responding to customer concernsLack of corporate social media policiesEmployees not trained in company policiesLack of professional Social Media managersToo much focus on self-promotion (lack of relationship building)Lack of due diligence before launching social campaigns We can all learn from these mistakes.
5 Ways to Start Learning How to Code Right Now Learning to code is one of the most powerful and satisfying things you can ever do. If you’re a designer, learning to code can help you understand what you’re creating for, and if you’re looking to build a startup from scratch, being a technical founder can make things exponentially easier for you. No matter why you want to learn, the only thing you really need is curiosity. But if you’re just starting out as a novice and don’t know where to begin, there are plenty of ways to get started. We presented this list of 7 ways to start learning how to code right now for free last month, and now we’re back with 5 more ways to start coding for free! iTunes U Apple just recently made some dramatic changes to iTunes U, and Stanford’s set of videos is quite an impressive offering. ➤ iTunes U Kids Ruby We wrote about Kids Ruby this past December and honestly, you’ve got to start them young, right? Now, if you’re not a kid, this software might still be really helpful for you. ➤ Kids Ruby Net Tuts+
Going Viral in 6 Questions, Part One: Spymaster Congresswoman Dina Titus has taken to social media to poke fun at prediction markets in the wake of the FAIR BET Act’s momentum. The representative from the First District of Nevada in the US House of Representatives has been seeking a “common sense fix” to the changes introduced in the current President of the United States’ (POTUS) megabill, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). FAIR BET Act gathers support The changes introduced in the OBBBA would mean that gamblers would face a 90% reduction in taxation on gambling earnings, compared to the current 100%. This would mean a gambler who wins $100,000 and then loses $100,000 would be required to pay $10,000 in taxes, despite the loss of profit, as we reported. The Congresswoman is hoping that the act’s introduction, which she heralded earlier this week (July 21, 2025), will combat some of the wider sweeping gambling changes that were proposed in the OBBBA. Rep. Titus pokes fun at prediction markets
Rebecca Black e o Marketing de Resultado nas Redes Sociais. Quem já teve oportunidade de ir a uma de minhas palestras sabe que sou um fã de carteirinha de Stefhany Absoluta (veja seu novo sucesso!), aquela mesmo do Cross Fox, uma das primeiras web celebridades da cena musical em nosso país. Hoje seu canal no Youtube conta com mais de 13 milhões de acesso e, de certa forma, coroa nossa cultura popular e demonstra na prática um pouco do padrão de consumo web de nosso país. Somente para comparação, o astro Luan Santana, que no ano passado foi quem mais vendeu música nos pais segundo a Associação Brasileira de Produtores de Disco com 232 mil cd´s, têm mais de 60 milhões de acessos a seus vídeos. Nas últimas semanas, um novo fenômeno tomou conta do universo digital. É a simpática e irritante garotinha de 13 anos, Rebecca Black, dona do hit Friday que em pouco mais de um mês superou os 60 milhões de views. Lembro que a comunicação muitas vezes é um estimulo e é o receptor da mensagem que vai definir se o produto é bom ou não.
7 Ways to Learn to Code Right Now for Free Learning to code is one of the most powerful and satisfying things you can ever do. If you’re a designer, learning to code can help you understand what you’re creating for, and if you’re looking to build a startup from scratch, being a technical founder can make things exponentially easier for you. No matter why you want learn, the only thing you really need is curiosity. But if you’re just starting out as a novice and don’t know where to begin, here’s a list of 7 ways to start learning how to code right now for free: 1. Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions. ➤ Processing (Reference, Tutorials, Wiki, Forum, Inspiration) 2. Codecademy bills itself as “the easiest way to learn how to code,” and thanks to this startup, learning to code online has never been so accessible. ➤ Codecademy 3. Bloc, a new educational startup, makes it easy for you to start writing in Ruby. ➤ Bloc 4. ➤ Meetup, Hackathons 5.
Untitled Document Case Study #1 "How Hotmail grew to 12 million users ... in just 18 months!" When Microsoft launched their Hotmail e-mail service, they wanted to grow fast. So they launched an extremely clever viral marketing campaign: Hotmail attached a tiny advertisement to the bottom of every e-mail people sent using their service, offering FREE e-mail accounts. Here's what it looked like: So every e-mail sent by a Hotmail user became a word-of-mouth referral for the company! In just 18 months, Hotmail grew its subscriber base from zero to 12 MILLION users -- faster than any company in any media in the history of the world! In the process, they built a multimillion-dollar business... ... and blew other free e-mail providers, with their ultra-expensive ad campaigns, right out of the water! ISSUE: Unless you have a product people MUST share to use, this viral marketing technique will be difficult for you to implement!
Here's To The Crazy Ones