Minglebox goes Viral with Collegitis – Is it spreading?
Online Viral marketing and its impacts have been discussed on our blog before and there is no doubt in the fact that a well executed online viral does wonders for a companies brand and also for the traffic to its website.
There have been a few superlative virals in chidiya udi, chitthi and mentoshelpline which we have discussed earlier as well.
Offlate there is a trend of Indian social networks looking at viral ways (beyond the invite feature on their site) to attract their target audience. So DesiMartini came out with makkadman which we blogged about here and BigAdda tried using its logo choosing tactic for getting some viral impact and joining the race now is the fully funded and Sequoia backed social network Minglebox jumping on to the Viral Bandwagon.
Minglebox has launched a page on Collegitis.com which talks about a virus spreading through college students. One needs to try and take a retina scan or thumb impression or speak into the PC to know if one is infected (I mean comeon.. Do i have dumb written on my forehead!!!). When one tries to do that it says results unclear and gives you the option for a rerun or to take a cure! Well you got it.. The cure to collegitis is to signup on minglebox! (How lame.. i mean.. really.. )
Im not sure which agency build this so called viral for them but in the name of God what are 7 million funded startups doing with their money?? :S .. I think the makkadman viral however cheesy was better as its timing was perfect with the Spiderman release even though there was no connect with Desimartini.
As far as Minglebox trying to make a connect with College going kids with this viral is concerned im not sure how successful would that be. Maybe something like this done by Timesjobs but more from a college life perspective than a jobs perpective would be better. I mean anything is better than a lame attempt at a fake retina scan and thumb scan to get registrations!!
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I think the 'thirst' to overthrow orkut is so strong that even VCs think its a smart strategy to fund a social networking site.
I don't think its 'marketing' thats the issue for a social portal.
End of the day – the success of a networking site will not depend on its marketing or its traffic. Its simply the ability to connect that draws people.
With Google's ovens doing the baking, orkut will always remain the place where i can search for a long lost friend from kindergarden. This is something no other portal can give me.
Your thoughts are invited.
I saw the site. I don't think anyone will take the scans that seriously. They're pretty transparent about being a cat-out-of-the-bag trick anyway. Do I smell some envy about 7 million bucks here? If its dollars, heck even I'd be jealous. In the end, unless the website is good and offers a clearly defined benefit, it will sink. Life is that simple and ruthless in web 2.0.
Firstly Sequoia has lost its investment in a lame social network like Minglebox. Moreover, the minglebox team is even lamer to have released this shitty viral.
Harshal Vaidya sums it all. Though, I would love to read an article from you guys on what exactly happened with that deal (Not sure how MingleBox would take it, given you guys have minglebox members on your team)
Minglebox sucks.. they are are just pimping their ugly and useless site.
minglebox and yaari.com are guilty of compulsive spamming. community networking sites need to establish trust in the users mind. If they engage in spamming from day one, why would anyone join them?
This is not a viral campaign .. this is spam.. Viral campaign is something that i would love to forward to my friends.. like Daddu ki amaanat and makkadman.
Lol! One can actually feel the envy seeping through.
Well we covered MingleBox's funding in great depth…i'm surprise if you didnt get to read it.
http://www.watblog.com/?content=detail&id=684
And we covered MakkadMan too – which i think was more about Web Chutney and less about Desi Martini.
http://www.watblog.com/?content=detail&id=730
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