Marketing viruses carried by e-mail don't explode into epidemics until they can reproduce. And to make that happen, viral marketers rely on function and fun. The really successful Internet marketing viruses either empower users or let them kick back and have a good time playing on-line. One of the firm's most popular products, Shockbowl, is a bowling game that can sit on a web site and keep bringing visitors back for more. Adveract itself has over 60,000 monthly visits from surfers who want to bowl on-line.
Webmasters can install the game on their sites free with their own billboard message.
Every 35 seconds, Adveract will flash a link to bring viewers to its site where they can, of course, get their own Shockbowl game for their own site and flash Adveract billboards every 35 seconds. The game is small enough to attach to an e-mail. By leveraging the compound power of multiple users each time a group is formed, eGroups reached 4 million users in just a few months, outstripping HotMail in its rate of customer acquisition. Each eGroup member is invited to start his or her own group bv clicking on the eGroup link included in every group e-mail communication. Somewhere between fun and functionality is a new breed of virus.