History

The term Viral Marketing was coined by a Harvard Business School professor, Jeffrey F. Rayport, in December 1996 article for Fast Company “The Virus of Marketing”. The term was further popularized by Tim Draper and Steve Jurvetson of the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson in 1997 to describe Hotmail’s e‐mail practice of appending advertising for itself in outgoing mail from their users.Among the first to write about viral marketing on the Internet was media critic Douglas Rushkoff in his 1994 book Media Virus. The assumption is that if such an advertisement reaches a “susceptible” user, that user will become “infected” (i.e., sign up for an account) and can then go on to infect other susceptible users. As long as each infected user sends mail to more than one susceptible user on average (i.e., the basic reproductive rate is greater than one), standard in epidemiology imply that the number of infected users will grow according to a logistic curve, whose initial segment appears exponential.Among the first to write about algorithms designed to identify people with high Social Networking Potential is Bob Gerstley in “Advertising Research is Changing”. Gerstley uses SNP algorithms in quantitative marketing research to help marketers maximize the effectiveness of viral marketing campaigns. It is also named “viral” because it allows a message to spread like a virus. In 2004 the concept of Alpha User was released to indicate that it had become now possible to technically isolate the focal point members of any viral campaign, the “hubs” who are most influential. Alpha Users can today be isolated and identified, and even targeted for viral advertising purposes most accurately in mobile phone networks, as mobile phones are so personal. In response to its use, many sites have started up trying to describe what viral marketing is.