小編的話：音頻開始部分是英領(lǐng)館的介紹，不是音頻不對(duì)哦，請(qǐng)耐心聽到正文部分！

?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.

滬江小編：“病毒式營(yíng)銷”這個(gè)名字對(duì)于一般人來(lái)說(shuō)，還是有一點(diǎn)陌生的。但事實(shí)上，“病毒式營(yíng)銷”早已充斥著我們的生活，你肯定遇到過(guò)這樣的營(yíng)銷手段。舉例來(lái)說(shuō)，每次你用雅虎郵箱來(lái)接收郵件的時(shí)候，就會(huì)有個(gè)小窗口問(wèn)你“你知道雅虎嗎？”這就是病毒式營(yíng)銷！ 它是通過(guò)給用戶提供某項(xiàng)服務(wù)來(lái)做宣傳。

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.

滬江小編：起初，病毒式營(yíng)銷的成本非常低，非常適合于那些剛剛起步、缺乏資金進(jìn)行宣傳的公司。但是現(xiàn)在很多公司都花大錢來(lái)搞病毒式營(yíng)銷。

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.

滬江小編：病毒式營(yíng)銷和垃圾郵件有什么區(qū)別？?jī)烧咦畋举|(zhì)的區(qū)別是病毒式營(yíng)銷是通過(guò)提供某種服務(wù)來(lái)發(fā)布廣告；而垃圾郵件只有一個(gè)目的，那就是做廣告。病毒式營(yíng)銷通過(guò)人們相互之間的傳播來(lái)進(jìn)行，是有針對(duì)性的；而垃圾郵件的發(fā)送則是隨機(jī)的。更多關(guān)于商務(wù)英語(yǔ)行業(yè)英語(yǔ)的知識(shí)，就讓我們一起走進(jìn)商務(wù)英語(yǔ)入門(課程)的課堂，從頭學(xué)起吧！學(xué)英語(yǔ)也能很輕松!