小编的话:音频开始部分是英领馆的介绍,不是音频不对哦,请耐心听到正文部分!

 P = Presenter, M = guest on radio show

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'?

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.

沪江小编:“病毒式营销”这个名字对于一般人来说,还是有一点陌生的。但事实上,“病毒式营销”早已充斥着我们的生活,你肯定遇到过这样的营销手段。举例来说,每次你用雅虎邮箱来接收邮件的时候,就会有个小窗口问你“你知道雅虎吗?”这就是病毒式营销! 它是通过给用户提供某项服务来做宣传。

P: But it's not limited to internet email providers, is it?

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.

沪江小编:起初,病毒式营销的成本非常低,非常适合于那些刚刚起步、缺乏资金进行宣传的公司。但是现在很多公司都花大钱来搞病毒式营销。

P: And presumably the idea is that people like the game, or animation or whatever and send it on to their friends.

M: Exactly - it spreads like a virus.

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?

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.

沪江小编:病毒式营销和垃圾邮件有什么区别?两者最本质的区别是病毒式营销是通过提供某种服务来发布广告;而垃圾邮件只有一个目的,那就是做广告。病毒式营销通过人们相互之间的传播来进行,是有针对性的;而垃圾邮件的发送则是随机的。更多关于商务英语行业英语的知识,就让我们一起走进商务英语入门(课程)的课堂,从头学起吧!学英语也能很轻松!