Here’s an article on the business side of “the new communities” sites. And here’s one telling us that viral communities are back. (An example quote from the former: “models like Friendster, Ryze and Deanlink are milestones on the road to what could be the most powerful online marketing model yet.”)
“…the most powerful online marketing model yet.” Here is another example using these networks for marketing purposes, buried in a TIME article about market research. http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030908/xopener3.html
I wonder if these “Look-Look kids” even realize they are part of a giant marketing experiment?
The pertainent part of the article below.
Gordon and Lee left Lambesis and founded Look-Look. Instead of canvassing their sources by hand, in person, they built up an army of teenagers that constantly feeds them information online. They estimate that they have 20,000 contacts, with the number expanding 500 to 1,000 a month. “It was all grown organically,” says Gordon proudly, as if she were surveying a vast hemp farm. “We spent a great deal of money and up-front time handpicking these people based on peer-to-peer recruitment. It’s a very different methodology from the way that most people gather bodies. We kind of modeled it after an MLM (multilevel marketing plan)-like an Herbalife or a Mary Kay or an Avon.” The Look-Look kids-they’re known as “field correspondents”-wander the cultural landscape with digital cameras (provided by Look-Look), uploading images from parties and concerts and sporting events for the Look-Look employees-sorry, “youth-information specialists”-to pore over. (Look-Look defines kids as ages 14 to 30. “Thirty is different now,” says Lee. “Thirty is really 35 now.”)
Because these kids are permanently wired to the mother ship, Gordon and Lee can ping them at will with specific requests from clients. When Calvin Klein came to them with a list of possible names for a new fragrance targeted at young men, Look-Look could quickly run the list past 10,000 or so teenage eyeballs. (The eventual winner? “Crave.”) “Before, you would have to just kind of guess, or you’d have to wait,” says Lee, “but because we’ve built this huge network, we have the capability to test the hypothesis with any kind of sample size that we want and get an immediate response. Yes, this is happening, or no, it isn’t.” It’s an instantaneous, infallible coolometer.
I don’t think they ever realized they we’re part of a giant experiment.