One of the latest buzzwords in e-commerce is "viral marketing" - the basic idea being to use the power of the Internet to spread the good news about a product like an epidemic. The concept of viral marketing is not new. Its precursor Word-of-mouth marketing has been around for ages. The principle behind word-of-mouth marketing is simpJe; use influencers to generate peer-to-peer product recommendations. Prior to the advent of the Internet, however, this form of marketing was too disjointed to effectively benefit most advertisers. The effect of word-of-mouth was largely confined to specific geographic areas simply due to the lack of widespread social networks. Word-of-mouth was generally limited by the ability of the influencer to effectively speak to another prospective customer, hence the term "word-of-mouth".

{"references": ["Dixit, S. K. (2008). Viral Marketing \u2013 A Power Tool. APEEJAY Journal of Management, Sciences and Technology, 2(2), 50-56."]}