Webcam Surfing, Viral Marketing and other animals

Following a spate of articles in the news and blogs about how it’s possible to use Google to search for public and unsecured webcams around the world, today I came across a web page that displays a whole collection of available live feeds found using this technique.

The interesting thing for the writer is that this sort of contribution to the general community will generate
a substantial amount of viral traffic (viral as in viral marketing) for the main site (OpenTopia.com) which is essentially a search directory financed by Google AdSense. Doesn’t take long for human ingenuity to kick in and tap into an open source of information.

Although the Viral Marketing link above is 5 years old (amazing how time flies), it gives a good overview of what the term means and one or more factors that make an effective viral marketing strategy:

  • Gives away products or services
  • Provides for effortless transfer to others
  • Scales easily from small to very large
  • Exploits common motivations and behaviors
  • Utilizes existing communication networks
  • Takes advantage of others’ resources

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