Life in the Network

Wikipedia is an amazing thing. Every person in this class are now published on a website used around the world. For my entry I at first had no idea what to. I don't really consider myself an expert on anything so I had to think of something that I thought I knew something about. So, instead of guessing and making a fool of myself I decided to do something that I know something about, my old high school. So, there was only a small blurb about it as it had been created recently. So I decided to remember back to my high school days and tell people more about it. So far there was no discussion and I added almost everything on the page. The only thing there was where the high schoolwas located. To see my entry follow the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_High_School. Because there was nothing in the entry, I, myself, had to keep a neutral point of view and just report the facts. So far the only link that is on there is one to the Superior High School website.

I actually remember when the Subservient Chicken came out. I remember going to the site and actually being a little creeped out because the room that the chicken was in was kind of grimy and dirty. Anywho, I remember that my roommates and I played with the thing for like an hour and were shocked at how much stuff he actually could do. (I also remember he wouldn't do some stuff and just shook his finger at us;)) Then I can recall when I figured out it was Burger King that was sponsoring this website. When reading Anderson I was really impressed how Burger King used its "Have it your way" focus by having the chicken doing things that you wanted. Which is like having it your way. I am impressed at how marketers have used viral marketing to sell their products.

As Brier stated, "When creating an advertisement, the hope is that the message will infect consumers and replicate itself inside them, thereby connecting the brand and the individual. The only online elements considered viral are those that find success. That is because, as every good virus knows, it’s either spread or be dead". Viral advertising is an amazing thing because it could either make sales go through the roof or the PSP's attempt at creating buzz for itself by lying to customers. (Here's a link to the story,sorry its long, while not part of the reading, it's pretty interesting:

http://www.gamesradar.com/us/ps3/game/features/article.jsp?articleId=2007031912215876016&releaseId=
20060314115917309058§ionId=1003&pageId=200703191269795038

Obviously, companies are seeing the potential that viral marketing has. Honestly, I cannot really see a line between documenting something and doing free marketing because they are so closely related. So, as businesses start to use the internet more and more to market itself, we should expect more attempts to create something viral.