Unleashing the Ideavirus

Unleashing the Ideavirus
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 www.ideavirus.com
got over the hump and dominated the hive of people about to go online, the next generation
of users would come along far cheaper.
She was right. Once AOL established dominance for new users, they established a network of
powerful sneezers. Powerful, because these were folks who until quite recently had been new
users. These once-new, once-lost users had the credibility to spread the word to those just
behind them on the learning curve. They were powerful because they’d been there, and their
personal experience counted for more than any salesperson’s could.
The virus had authority, because every “bestseller” list credited AOL with being far and away
the most popular Internet service provider in the land. Today, someone at Sun City who
until recently had no idea what they were talking about when they said “Internet” could
proudly recommend AOL to the person in the next condo. AOL now spends about $100 in
marketing to get a new member—because their virus tipped.
There’s plenty of interesting action that occurs before the tipping point, though. Viruses
need to spread before they tip, and a smart marketer can be quite happy indeed along the
way.
Dominating the hive is essential in starting the virus in the first place. And most marketers
make the mistake of picking too big a hive to focus on in the first place.
If you go to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, you’ll see one of the largest trade
shows in the world, and you’ll also see hundreds of companies spending millions of dollars
trying to dominate the show. All of them fail. Which is why it’s so rare for a virus to be
launched at the CES. It’s just too noisy, and there are no exciting but safe recommendations
for the most powerful sneezers to make.
The smart marketers take a different path. They launch at Demo or Spotlight or Esther
Dyson’s conference—a much smaller venue, but a higher concentration of powerful sneezers.
Here, for about the same money as making a whisper at CES, you can completely dominate
the discussion.

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