Viral Marketing - The Future of Advertising
To understand viral marketing you need to be familiar with social memetics – the idea of viral marketing is to create a product or advert that encourages the end user and potential customer to also become your promoter.
Like an epidemic, a clever viral advert is passed on from one user to another and so on and so forth. The advert/product is distributed exponentially to an ever-increasing mass audience.
A most notable and unfortunate example of this viral effect happened over two centuries ago with a wave of suicides that swept across Europe – just like an infectious disease.
Interestingly though, the catalyst is strongly suspected to be German author Johann Van Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther”; a tragic tale in which unlucky in love hero Werther commits suicide; the resultant actual suicides had many similarities to Werther’s. The thesis is known as social contagion and suggests that opinion can spread like the plague; almost inhibiting the recipients choice on the matter.
This is the potential goldmine that we as marketers sit on; now remove the romantic novel and introduce the internet…
More recently and possibly easier for us to relate to is the “star wars kid” – a short video clip of a student pretending to be a Jedi knight; which has to date had nearly 900 million views – if ever there was need for validation that Google’s $1.6bn spurge on YouTube was no waste of money.
Now the problem is that viral marketing is hard to track, a thus hard to determine what works and what doesn’t. Even 900m views doesn’t necessarily mean a huge boost in sales; it would have been nice if the video maker were selling something.

A commercial example is John Wests Salmon advert – the one where the fisherman fights the bear – You would buy the salmon in the supermarket so there is yet again no way of directly relating any increase in sales back to this hugely popular viral video.
It won’t be too long before technology saves the day here, but for the meantime it’s still a bit hit or miss. Of course it will be neither if you don’t go out nor try for yourself.
Article marketing is probably the easiest and most accessible way of producing something with viral potential so why not start there. The idea is to write a good quality article on your chosen niche and submit to article directories.

Dependant on quality, your article may be picked up by website and/or newsletter owners who will distribute the article for you.
Within the copyright clause you can include a link back to your website and hey presto – your first viral campaign; not to mention you’ll be building backlinks.
If you feel more creative then why not have a look into producing mini video clips for posting on YouTube and Myspace; accrediting a website URL in the title sequence and end credits.
“They” say it’s “The future of entertainment”. Make no mistake viral marketing is very much the future of advertising too; learn as much about it as you can.
Please visit http://www.colmodwyer.com for more articles and useful marketing information.


Flipping Clicks and AdSense
For people who love the Internet and are looking for possible and steady sources of extra moolah, the on line ad networks may be the most popular and convenient choice. However, one could really get messed up with the numerous on line ad networks cramping cyberspace. With the numerous options available, finding the on line ad network to choose and trust is not an easy task.
One of the most popular on line ad networks nowadays would probably be the Google AdSense. This on line ad network is comprised of thousands of small to mid-sized publishers, with a few large publishers. Various testimonials state that with AdSense, people can get an average of US$2200 to US$6000 a month. However, the “death” of AdSense is being circulated on the Internet when Google introduced “smart pricing”. Some people started feeling like AdSense is already the dreaded word- a JOB.
Some claim that although they continue to receive pay checks from Google, the monthly payments have significantly decreased. Those earning US$2000 monthly have been receiving a few hundreds. This is the so-called death of AdSense.
Thus, a new on line network is competing head to head with AdSense. People with dedication, creativity, patience and knowledge, no doubt, would make it big with AdSense. However, for those who are looking for an easy time and easy money, ClickFlipping is a new option.
Clicking flips is all about legally stealing clicks from other AdSense publishers. It must be noted that selling your traffic with AdSense is quite easy. With the use of a code, every single click earns money. But the idea of ClickFlipping is to buy other people's flicks and sell them for a much higher price instead of selling your flicks for a cheap price.
With ClickFlipping, there is no more need to rely on fickle search engines to bring in natural search traffic. With the pay-per-click traffic feature, you are already in the game in just less than half an hour. In addition, ClickFlipping pays bigger bucks for leads by sending traffic to cost-per-action websites. Put a simple banner on your blog only to check out by morning that it has already earned you dollars. And this is just for starters. Other Cost-Per-Action offer anywhere between US$15 to US$ 180 per lead.

It is true however that ClickFlipping takes a little time and testing. The first attempts with ClickFlipping may lead to a lot of mistakes. Time, effort and even money will be wasted. But once you already discovered the ins and outs of ClickFlipping, the dollars start pouring in steady streams. With ClickFlipping, you have a way to track conversions on the keyword level to find out which keywords bring in the most profit, the so-called “money makers”. In order to do this, you have to delete other keywords and ramp up the traffic to the more profitable keywords. This will establish a profit pathway. The more profit pathways, the more dollars you earn.
With ClickFlipping, one can pursue other activities without compromising the smooth operations of you Internet business. The ClickFlipping business still earns money even when you are not in front of the computer. One only has to find a CPA, slap up a landing page and finally add the keywords and create a Pay-Per-Click campaign.
The most common mistakes one is bound to commit with ClickFlipping are sending natural search traffic to CPA landing pages and sending pay-per-click traffic CPA landing pages. However, ClickFlipping has its downsides. For beginners with no knowledge at all about AdSense, Adwords and basic HTML, learning ClickFlipping may be a daunting challenge. It will also take a relatively longer time before money starts pouring into your account. In addition, getting into the exclusive ClickFlipping group is not cheap.
The word war between the Google AdSense and ClickFlipping continues to be waged in cyberspace. Google AdSense have been in existence for a long time now and many attest to its potential to rake in profits. But it has its downsides. On the other hand, ClickFlipping is an innovation and still needs to be tested. But this does not mean that one shouldn't explore this scheme. ClickFlipping offers different features and opportunities from that of AdSense.
Both on line ad networks have their own advantages and disadvantages. What is important is to weigh both ad networks and find the one most suitable to your lifestyle, need and financial situation.

About The Author:
Peter Dobler is a 20+ year veteran in the IT business. He is an active Real Estate Investor and a successful Internet business owner. Learn more about Adsense; send a blank email to course@peterdobler.com or visit http://adsense.articles24x7.com


NetSib Releases NetworkShield Firewall 2006 the New Generation Corporate Gateway Firewall
Budapest, Hungary, - December 14, 2006 – NetSib announces new version of NetworkShield Firewall 2006 for Windows 2000/XP/2003, the new generation corporate gateway firewall.
NetworkShield Firewall 2006 is a new generation corporate gateway firewall, which protects the network from external and internal attacks, provides Internet access to users and offers enhanced traffic monitoring and counting features. Multi-network support, Powerful NAT, Stateful Firewall Protection, Servers Publishing, Recovery System turn it into a reliable solution for business.
One of the main advantages of NetworkShield Firewall 2006 is its powerful and stable engine for processing and controlling the network traffic. At the same time NetworkShield Firewall 2006 is extremely easy to install and set up using intuitive configuration wizards and an advanced management console.
NetworkShield Firewall 2006 is fully compatible with Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003, including components of these operational systems, which saves the troublesome necessity to select a stable configuration or even purchase an additional server.
NetworkShield Firewall 2006 is ideal for small and mid-sized businesses, whether they are need a powerful and simple solution to managing access rights and protecting their networks without resorting to additional costly resources.
Basic version of NetworkShield Firewall 2006 available at $299 (USD), which includes 10 client Access Licenses and 6 months of free updates subscription. Free 35-day trial version available for download at the NetworkShield Firewall official Web site www.networkshield.com.
About NetSib
NetSib specializes in development of network security and access management solutions for small and medium sized networks. NetworkShield Firewall 2006 is available at official Web site www.networkshield.com as well as through a network of distributors and resellers.