title: The paradigm of viral communication
abstract: The IIW Institute of Information Management (www.IIW.de) is dealing with commercial applications of digital technologies, such as the Internet, digital printing, and many more. A study which has been carried out by the institute, identifies viral messages as a new paradigm of communication, mostly found in the area of Direct Marketing, and - who wonders - mainly within the USA. Viral messages underlie certain principles: (1) prospects and customers of the idea are offered a technology platform providing a possibility to send a message to a majority of persons; (2) there is an emotional or pecuniary incentive to participate. Ideally, niches of needs and market vacua are filled with funny ideas; (3) also, the recipients are facing emotional or pecuniary incentives to contact a majority of further recipients - this induces a snowball effect and the message is spread virally; and (4) the customer is activated as an "ambassador" of the piece of information, for instance promoting a product or a company. It is evident that there has been a long lasting history of what we call "word-of-mouth" ever since, however bundles of digital technologies empower the viral communication paradigm
keyphrases: commercial applications Internet viral messages direct marketing viral communication paradigm e-mails business computer virus