I’ve just read that YouTube ranks at number 10 in the list of the most popular websites. (Now Google wants to buy them for $1 bn.) The interesting thing is that YouTube was founded just a little over a year ago!
Now, I remember that I heard of YouTube from somebody else, that means, I didn’t come across it using a search engine.
My question is, do you know of any websites that you were told about by a friend, co-coworker or family member? How often do you share links with others? What do you think about “online word of mouth”?[YSaerTTEW443543]
Google actually bought them! 1.6 billion is a lot of money, and like Torsten said, think about how long they’ve been in business - not very long! 1.6 billion is a lot of money for a company that’s never made any profit. It looks like the owners will be retiring early.
I was reviewing a few viral marketing service and came accross something pretty intresting called WideCircles. They seem to work by sending viral messages to various websites like forums, blogs, wiki’s and so on. My friend signed up for the account the other day after running a small but successful campaign ( targeting very specific niche ) and told me about it. It seems like a nice idea to gather highly relevant traffic and help with the SEO process at the same time while paying very small amount of money compared to pay per click. In any case, I am going to give them a try today. In case you are intrested here is the site.
As for “online word of mouth”, I think it’s very effective, especially in the case of software engineers. If a software engineer comes to know about an interesting site, he/she will inform it to as many friends as possible by forwarding the email and the word spreads like wild-fire :lol:
Big fish swallow small fish. This is completely true in the case of IT companies. We have been witnessing such incidents a lot of late.
Big IT companies always keep an eye on smaller companies that are doing pretty well in their fields.
They wait till the small companies have carved a niche for themselves, and one fine day, pounce on them. They buy them out, never compromising on the amount of money they have to shell out.
Recently, a very big fish tried to swallow a fish almost its size but was forced to disgorge at the last moment. :lol:
I think there is a difference between ‘big fish swallowing small fish’ and big companies buying small companies. A company is an organization created and run by people, fish don’t think. The purchase of a company is an agreement between at least two parties. Before they reach this agreement, they usually negotiate to come up with the best deal for both. A small fish that is swallowed by a big one doesn’t have any choice.[YSaerTTEW443543]
I agree with you on this Torsten. My analogy wasn’t all that good, after all.
Big companies cannot possibly take over small companies without their consent. It would be illegal to do so, wouldn’t it?
What I meant was, a big company usually makes a small company an offer it can’t refuse. It might be in the best interests of both the parties but the small company is no longer independent after the acquisition is through.
You can try Widecircles. This is working fine for all of their customers as per the sources I have received. They works like anything.
A simple description about Widecircles:
Put The Message Where It Matters! WideCircles aka Wide Circles represents relevant, distributed, highly targeted and efficient internet word of mouth marketing using entertaining or informative messages that are designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion using social network mediums such as blogs, forums, wikis and so on.
