Unleashing the Ideavirus

Unleashing the Ideavirus
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 www.ideavirus.com
Of course, it goes deeper than this. If it works for headhunting, maybe it works for finding
new clients for Viant, or for people who are looking to take a cruise. Or what about real
estate? If everyone could become a contingency broker, doesn’t life online get interesting? If
the Internet succeeds when it monetizes previously random analog events (like garage sales at
eBay) then this may just be the killer app for this space.
Does Referrals.com work? I actually have no idea. It’s just launching. We don’t know if the
promiscuous will overwhelm the powerful and pollute the whole system. We don’t know the
velocity of the idea or how long this particular virus will last. But it’s clear that 
something
will
replace the current model of headhunters spamming powerful sneezers and essentially
stealing their rolodex.
Alladvantage.com wanted to take the multi-level marketing approach instead. Each person
they signed up got a commission on the revenue generated by the people 
those
people signed
up. And so on.
They got off to a very hot start, signing up millions of users in a very short period of time.
But now, according to the 
Wall Street Journal
, they’ve discovered that maybe they were
paying these promiscuous sneezers too much to make any money in the end. So Alladvantage
just announced new rules in the way they pay their sneezers.
The result was predictable… their most important sneezers were outraged. When you pay
people to refer on your behalf, you’ve got to expect that they are indeed motivated by
money, and when the money goes, so will your sneezers.
Multi-level marketing has gotten a bad reputation among powerful sneezers. Why? Because
individuals are encouraged to suspend their judgment and embrace the idea that several
generations down the pike, they’ll be rich.
While this is a fine choice for an individual to make, it’s problematic for those who are
friends with this individual. Why? Because the personal interaction is no longer on a level
playing field. Person A uses his friendship with person B to encourage her to buy or use

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