Viral Marketing
病毒式營銷

P = Presenter, M = guest on radio show
P=主持人，M=廣播節(jié)目嘉賓

P: Now, one of the latest buzzwords in e-commerce is 'viral marketing' - using the power of the internet to advertise a product or service. I'm joined in the studio today by Michael MacAulay of the website which monitors internet trends. Michael, what exactly is 'viral marketing'?
P：現(xiàn)在，在電子商務(wù)中最新的流行行話就是“病毒式營銷”了，它指的是用網(wǎng)絡(luò)的力量來為一個(gè)產(chǎn)品或者一種服務(wù)做廣告。今天，我通過來自監(jiān)控網(wǎng)絡(luò)發(fā)展趨勢的網(wǎng)站的邁克爾.麥考利進(jìn)入到了錄音室。邁克爾，“病毒式營銷”到底是什么？

M: Hi Tony. The idea of viral marketing is basically that the internet does your advertising for you. A good example is internet email providers like Hotmail or Yahoo. Every time someone sends you an email using a Yahoo address you get that little 'Do you Yahoo?' message at the end - basically advertising what Yahoo does, while still providing you with the service - the message you've received.
M：嗨，托尼。病毒式營銷主要就是指網(wǎng)絡(luò)為你做廣告。互聯(lián)網(wǎng)電子郵件服務(wù)供應(yīng)商，如微軟熱郵和雅虎郵箱。每次有人用雅虎地址給你發(fā)郵件的時(shí)候，你會(huì)在信息的末端看到一個(gè)小窗口寫著“你知道雅虎嗎？” - 這主要是通過廣告來表示雅虎是做什么的，而同時(shí)，它還是為你提供了服務(wù)- 你收到了信息。

P: But it's not limited to internet email providers, is it?
P：但病毒式營銷不僅僅是限制于互聯(lián)網(wǎng)電子郵箱服務(wù)供應(yīng)商的，對嗎？

M: Not at all. Hotmail is perhaps the most famous example but there's lots and lots of stuff on the web that can be seen as viral marketing. You might get sent, for example, a little game to play on your PC or a funny animation, something like that. More often than not, they're advertising a product or an event. The initial idea of viral marketing was that it cost next to nothing - great for ventures without a huge startup budget but I suspect there's quite a lot of money spent on this sort of thing now.
M：不是的。微軟熱郵也許是最有名的例子，但是網(wǎng)絡(luò)上還有很多東西可以被視為病毒式營銷。例如，你可能會(huì)在你個(gè)人電腦的屏幕上收到一個(gè)小游戲、一個(gè)有趣的動(dòng)畫之類的東西。通常情況下，它們是用來為一個(gè)產(chǎn)品或是一項(xiàng)活動(dòng)做廣告的。起初，病毒式營銷的成本幾乎為零，這很適合剛剛起步、資金不足的公司，但我猜，現(xiàn)在病毒式營銷需要花費(fèi)很多的錢了。

P: And presumably the idea is that people like the game, or animation or whatever and send it on to their friends.
P：也許人們喜歡游戲、動(dòng)畫之類的東西并會(huì)發(fā)送給他們的朋友。

M: Exactly - it spreads like a virus.
M：是的，這就像病毒在傳播一樣。

P: So far so good, but the word 'virus' is quite a negative one. I know from the emails we receive on the programme that a lot of our listeners are very concerned about the amount of unwanted emails - 'spam' as it's known - they already receive. Isn't viral marketing just another form of spam?
P：到目前為止，一切都還好，但“病毒”這個(gè)詞負(fù)面影響很大。我從在節(jié)目上收到的電子郵件中發(fā)現(xiàn)，我們很多聽眾都關(guān)注自己收到的垃圾郵件，也就是大家所說的“spam”的數(shù)量。難道病毒式營銷不就是垃圾郵件的另一種形式嗎？

M: It's a good point Tony. The vital difference between viral marketing and spam is that one is providing a service and the other isn't. Viral marketing relies on people sending things on to their friends and family. Spam is sent to thousands of people at random. So they're very different. Having said that, the line does begin to get a bit blurred in places. There's the example of the company in the US that paid people - 50 cents an hour, I think - to let the company's viewbar display advertisements on their screens. However, the company also paid people 10 cents an hour if they sent the 'viewbar' to another person who allowed the ads onto their screen. Now that can be seen as encouraging people to send unwanted emails.
M：這一點(diǎn)提得好，托尼。病毒式營銷和垃圾郵件的區(qū)別在于前者是在提供一種服務(wù)而后者不是。病毒式營銷是通過人們給他們的朋友家人發(fā)送東西實(shí)現(xiàn)的。而垃圾郵件是隨意地發(fā)送到人們手中的。所以它們很不一樣。話雖如此，在一些地方，病毒式營銷和垃圾郵件的區(qū)別還是很模糊的。舉個(gè)例子，美國的一家公司為了讓它的“工具欄”顯示在人們的屏幕上，每小時(shí)付給別人50美分。但是，如果人們把“工具欄”發(fā)送給其他同意廣告出現(xiàn)在屏幕上的人的話，這家公司也會(huì)每小時(shí)付給他們10美分。現(xiàn)在看來，這就導(dǎo)致了人們發(fā)送垃圾郵件。