Viral Marketing

A.k.a Buzz Marketing and WOM Marketing - Word-Of-Mouth Marketing.

I just found out that my ex works in viral marketing.
I haven't yet decided if this falls under the umbrella of shady market practises, as was my first though, or if it's actually a stroke of genius.

I mean I know that word-of-mouth has an incredible market penetration. Good products get referred to by other users, and need for the product and/or service is created.
However, harnessing this by sending advertisers out under a cloak of secrecy to create this viral buzz, might just be crossing the boundary to what is acceptable in marketing.

I suppose time will tell on this particular subject, but my stance right now is that viral marketing (guerilla marketing, if you will) is something the devil cooked up in his (or her, as per your preference) spare time to pester the unsuspecting public.
Words like fraud come to mind.

Sure, I can't blame my ex for doing it, it's just that I probably would have chosen a different line of employment.

It's like a con with corporate backup.
Get the confidence, sell the product, and damn the consequences.
I mean with regular commercials, at least you know it's a commercial.
From now on, I can't trust anything anybody tells me anymore online, for fear that they are actually secretly employed by one of these guerilla organizations for spreading word that isn't necessarily true.

WOMMA (their organization) has these ethics rules that companies probably pay lax attention to, at best.

The social effects of this remain to be seen, but I predict that increasing distrust of people and companies will follow. Soon, you won't be able to take anybodies word for anything, since that word might be backed by corporate sponsors.
It's a fucked up world we live in, ladies and gentlemen, and there isn't' a single thing we can do about it.
Grassroots movements you say, and communities of people, working towards a single goal...
I'll give you two guesses as to what's on the top of WOMMAs list of places to start your campaigns...

--Markus out
(for now, atleast, my words are not corporately sponsored)

Driving Pleasure

When it's the end of September, still fall, and my miniweather desktop widget tells me it's 20 degrees C and sun out, I'm hard pressed not to take the car out for a spin.
Said and done.
Having the car in the garage up here make these spontaneous drives alot easier...
I moved it up on Tuesday night, and I think I'll keep it on the road for another 2-3 weeks probably. Until I get it sold, or the snow comes.

This was the first time driving around the smaller roads here in Uppsala for me. I've driven around the big roads quite a bit in my day, but since I've almost never had the convertible up here, I had to find myself some nice small and curvy roads to play with.
The first hour or so was moderately fruitful. I found some ok roads, but they didn't have enough tight turns on them. I prefer it when I can't get up to 140km/h before I hit the turn. Since I don't have a very big engine, that takes a couple of yards, so more curves, less straights.

After a refueling pitstop, however, I found some nice back roads. Still not as curvy as I would have wanted, but fairly ok. The best part of it was that I was completely alone.
At first I saw a bunch of older men in cars driving around (The driving population seems to consist of nothing else, because the only drivers I saw today, aside from myself, were 60+), but an hour later, I'm all alone, top down, and the wind in my hair.

Maybe next time, I'll try to get some company. The two people I asked had better things to do.
I did forget to ask one person who might have actually had time, however. =(
Must remember to talk to her next time...

--Markus out

Tragic

I just saw something on the news that further convinced me that a big part of the population are sheep.
Some department store in Göteborg arranged buss trips from Umeå (that's something like a 10 hour drive), just so these people could go to an outlet mall and do some shopping.
It's tragic, pathetic, and it just goes to show what a sad state of affairs this country's population is in.

No Deep Sleep

When you try to sleep with an active mind, such as you would have after a long party night with lasers and smoke and mindblowing music, you never really get the same kind of deep sleep that you normally would.
The colors are still locked in behind your eyes, and you only seem to achieve some sort of constant REM sleep, as you wake up not nearly as refreshed as you would have been, had last night been a normal night.
Usually, this effect is enhanced if you have been taking mind altering stimulants, but last night was a very clean night for me.
Surprisingly, the music kept me very awake for the duration. Normally, if I don't take anything, legal or otherwise, I tend to get a bit tired after 2-3 a.m., but I was wide awake last night, up until the point where I had locked the car, and was unlocking the door to my house. That's when the tiredness came.

I suppose I'm better off, though, than the poor people who had to wait for the party to end (some 3 hours after I left), so that they could take the party bus home.
I rarely, if ever, leave my car at home when there is a party. Atleast one outside the normal reaches of public transportation.
People say "but you can't drink then", and I say fine.
It's worth that much to me (and I don't drink when I dance, anyway), to be able to come and go as I please. Most people tend to agree with me when I am able to leave sometime in mid morning, and they are stuck waiting for the bus...

Last night was really a great party.
I got there around midnight, and a group called Trimada was playing live. I know one of the members if Trimada, but hey play some sort of Tech-Trance, which wasn't at all my cup of tea.
After their act, however, two guys calling themselves g3 or somesuch, consisting of the dj I spoke of in my earlier post, who was also the organizer for this party, and some other guy,and they really raised the roof. When they were done, I thought I would have to look high and low and far and wide for music as fast and as hard.
I was wrong. Just one hour later, a danish or norweigian guy called Phobium enters the stage to do a live set.
I've never seen or heard the guy before, so I wasn't expecting much in the way of awesomeness, but I was completely blown out of my socks. This could very easily have been one of the best live acts I have seen in my entire life. So fast, and so hard, without still being hardcore, it was wonderful.

I walked up to him after his hour was up, hoping to be able to snag one of his records, but he tells me that there won't be anything out for purchase until a couple of months later.
The wait will be terrible....
But ohh how sweet the reward for that wait will be...

Jackvi also played, I've blogged about him before. A handsome looking gentleman, quite crazy, and a kick-ass dj.
Also on the dj stand, as it were, last night, was Linus. I know him from Uppsala, where we have partied together in the past, and he has played at the club a couple of times.

What I love about the Swedish rave scene, is that the djs are not divas. They are not superstars. They don't consider themselves to be more than the audience they play for. They are part of the audience.
whenever Jackvi wasn't playing, he was down on the dancefloor tearing it up. The same thing can be said for more or less any psytrance dj I have ever had the pleasure of hearing in this country.

Sure, some people achieve more greatness and fame than others, but they are still more people, in a sense, than, for example, rock stars.

I leave you with this, as my tummy is calling for me to get some breakfast. Had I downloaded the pictures, you would have seen one with all the 7 lasers going. The light last night was incredible. Almost worth an entry of their own.

--Markus out

Rat

Also, my mouse seems to be on the fritz.
I can charge it for an entire night, with brand new rechargable batteries, and it will still tell me after 15 minutes of use, that my batteries are running low.
Even tho I can probably use it for a long long time after this happens.
I'm going to google for a solution

House Of The Rising Sun

It turns out, my friend (and party host) tells me, that the reason the current dj, who is kicking major ass, doesn't play at the club too often, is that he's normally in jail.
It appears that he's been let out on leave or whatever for this weekend, and the things he chooses to do is play at a club Friday, organize a major party on Saturday (I'm going, no doubt about it. He'll also be playing), and god knows what else on Sunday.
It was never made clear to me what he was in jail for, but it matters little. The music he played more than made up for any past transgressions, I would say.
Besides, they wouldn't release a child molester on leave, so I think this guy is pretty cool.

The night was altogether good. A lot of friends were there, along with a really good looking girl that I've been wanting to talk to for a while. She gave me a compliment on an online community site that we both (used to, in her case) visit, but I doubt she recognized me now, or if she did, she might have realized she spoke too soon or whatever.

A lot of the nice girls there that I know to normally be going out with one or more guys were single tonight. Of course, none of them had eyes for me, but that's what it's like I guess. You never ever get what you want, unless you pay for it. And in this case, paying for it might not be a good idea.

My friend had a small pre-party gettogether at her house before the club, and it was nice.
She's incredibly hot, but also very much my friend and not so much a one night shag.
Not that I wouldn't mind tapping her ass, as the kids say these days, but I don't know where that would lead.

Besides, I'm dating another girl now, cute and very tiny, we'll see where that leads.
Now it's time for me to resize and send away tonight's images so that they can be published.

--Markus out

Lars Von Trier

I'm watching this interview with Lars Von Trier.
He's got a wonderful outlook on life and on filmmaking.
"I don't make movies for the audience... ...Most people are too stupid anyway. 80% of the people are too stupid" [translated from Danish].

I have much the same opinion of people. Ofcourse my digits range from 95-99% of the people, but still.
"Björk isn't a woman, she's a little troll" <- wonderful guy, I'm liking him more and more for every passing minute

I like björk, and I liked Dancer in the Dark, but I would never watch it again.
I don't think any other single movie has made me feel as bad as Dancer in the Dark.
It was a very good movie, but it hurt SO much. I wouldn't be able to stand it again.

Hehe, and this guy also produces porn, wonderful! =)

I think I might have to sit down one weekend and watch all his movies. I've watched some, but not all. I have Breaking the Waves sitting in my bookshelf, but I haven't watched it yet.

I'm writing this as I'm watching the inverview, so it's some kind of narrative and instant interpretation of what's happening,.

And he's making an effort to speak swedishified danish, so that the interviewer should understand. Words that I know are different in Danish come out kind of Swedish.

"It's always better to lie, but I'm no good at it. People preferr lies". I concurr!

I rarely rarely lie, however. I find that people who can't take the truth lack a certain mental toughness.

"all the other kids had been spanked growing up, except me. And I was the one who WANTED to be spanked..."

Wow, it's going to be a three hour inverview. I doubt I can watch it all. I have a game to play, after all.

Hah, he calls GW Bush an asshole in a press conference in Cannes.

Apparently a six-part deal.

Well see what develops.

--Markus Out

Fighting Hamsters

I know I haven't written anything for a while, but iI've been busy with school and WoW, and there is another cute girl in my life aswell.

Anyway, I thought I'd show you this. Enjoy:
http://fishki.net/podborka/boevhomyak.jpg

WoW

So, I've started playing World Of Warcraft today.
The game I swore I wouldn't play, and it's a lot of fun.
My friend and I spent some 3-4 hours after school today and got up to level 9, just before breaking for dinner.
I'm now at the point where I should walk down to the store, buy dinner, come home, cook it, eat it, and then log back in.
preferably before I've finished eating.

I remember when we used to play diablo 2 on battle.net, him, me and a couple of other friends. (1.11 for d2 is out now, curses!)
I would spend SO much time at that game. Sometimes somewhere around 16 hours per day. Eat, sleep and play.
Lots of fun.
I just hope that I can keep up the schoolwork, and not get to sucked in to the experience.
Off to buy food now!

--Markus Out

Home At Last

I'm home.
I'm finally home, and I can't tell you how good it feels.
Things are where they are supposed to be. I decide when and how things are done. No one bursting in to my room wanting me to do stuff, or asking me stupid questions.
I REALLY need some alone-time after this summer, I really do.

The guy coming to buy my car newer showed last night. I knew that was a possibility, because he said that there might not be time. Hopefully, he'll call today.

First lecture today as well. Declarative Programming. Writing formalized logic in PROLOG.
It might not be the coolest course I've ever taken, but then again it certainly could. I really have no idea what to expect from this class. Time will tell I suppose.

I just hope that there's a lot fewer student in this class. These two years have been filled with a barrage of morons, and I can only hope that they've understood that if you haven't passed more than 50% of the courses after 2 years, then this might not be the right place for them.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving might not be for you.

I'll unpack my stuff, get some breakfast and then cruise down to school. Class starts in two hours, so I have some time.

Damn it feels good to be home!

--Markus out