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Disclosure: WordHugger and rssHugger have been acquired. Read about it here.

In an hour and a half (Midnight CST), It will officially be the 1st of December, and every month rssHugger will have the Top 100 blogs reset to give everyone a fair and equal chance at all that extra promotion. If you have not yet joined rssHugger, now is the time to join! If you already have joined, now is the time to make a blog update and get as many readers as possible to your blog page on rssHugger! This is a win/win situation because you help rssHugger by creating the buzz, and rssHugger sends hundreds of new readers back to you!

What are you waiting for… go sign up for rssHugger and increase rss subscribers with the free blog promotion! If you have not yet heard about rssHugger, I recommend you take a look at all of the benefits with my earlier post.

If you have not yet heard, an armed man with a bomb on his chest took the Clinton Presidential Campaign Office hostage today. The story is still unveiling, and a conclusion has not been reached (at the time of this writing).

As terrible a story as this may be, I thought I would point out an internet marketing tactic that people are using. THIS (can be) HIGHLY UNETHICAL, but even sites as large as CNN.com (104th most popular site in the world) show blogs that talk about the blog posts they write, as well as sites that give their articles trackbacks. While browsing CNN today, I noticed a few blackhat SEO sites in the “CNN Related Sphere.” I can only imagine how much traffic they are mooching, as any CNN groundbreaking story receives hundreds of thousands of unique viewers I would assume. As unethical as most blackhat SEO is (ranking crummy sites in the search engines to make money from advertisements), I had not thought about using “sad/bad” press as a way to promote yourself and increase website traffic prior to viewing this article today. I doubt this is a new tactic, but it makes you think. I wonder if hundreds of people were mooching the 9/11 press for fun and profit.

A new video was just released on Youtube from the wildly popular Tay Zonday, who is a local Minnesotan resident. His first video (Chocolate Rain) was an accidental internet success when it was made wildly popular from the 4Chan forums, and ultimately led him to be one of last summers largest internet memes. The video grew so popular (11.5 million views at the time of this post), that it now has been featured by national TV networks, as well as giant ringtone networks. Tay Zonday is taking his Chocolate Rain publicity to the next step now, because Dr. Pepper has just funded him to make a viral video supporting their new product (Diet Cherry Rain Dr. Pepper).

Cherry Chocolate Rain on Youtube (Opens in a new window)

The video is less than 24 hours old, and already has over 250,000 views, and over 20 awards. I expect this number to be outdated very quickly, and that the number will easily reach the millions. I have made this post because not many people have a chance to see a case study of the “before and after” of an upcoming viral video. Viral videos are very hard to come by, and usually occur randomly or by accident (Like chocolate rain), but I have to congratulate Dr. Pepper for making a viral video that promotes their product. If Dr. Pepper made a 30 second “commercial” about the drink, I highly doubt it would get over 5000 views. Youtube viral marketing brings a new marketing plan to big business companies, because now they not only have to make great products, but they have to deliver the message in a funny or clever way.For all of you out there with video experience, or want to get in on the action, NOW IS THE TIME. All of the big time videos on Youtube have spoofs of them, and mooch all of that amazing traffic from the main page. Vanilla Snow is a highly popular (1.5 million views) viral video spoof of Tay Zonday’s original Chocolate Rain. Much like Dr. Pepper, the creator of Vanilla Snow found a funny (viral) way to market a product (His Peppergod Talkshow).So in a quick summary, here are some (not so easy) ways to increase website traffic and make money online with a successful viral video:

1. Create a video that is funny/humorous
2. Make a spoof/parody video of a video that is going viral (Strawberry Vanilla Fog anyone?)
3. Create a controversial video
4. Keep it short. ~30 seconds is best
5. Make it gross (Chris Crocker making out with his brother… disgusting… but has millions of views)
6. Have music (nothing punk/hard rock)
7. Be the first (if you can)!!!

Please note that I do not make viral videos for a living, so my information is just as good as yours. I just post about what I generally see in popular videos, and if you follow my tips, chances are much greater that you will succeed. If any of you do make a parody/spoof of Cherry Chocolate Rain, let me know as I would love to see it. Even something as simple as duplicating the video but replacing Tay’s head with a big logo that says “SELL OUT” might receive a couple hundred thousand visitors. For a few hours of video cropping, some of you could double your yearly traffic. =)

Another viral video that came out yesterday is incredibly funny/gross, and already has hit the Digg frontpage and broke 500,000 views. I expect this one to be receiving at least a few million hits, although it would be near impossible (I hope) to make a spoof of this. It is still one of the funniest videos I have seen in a long time, and well worth a look.

Barf Bags Dont Work at 0 Gs on Break.com (Opens in a new window)

In response to my earlier post about getting rid of Kontera, many of you either hated it or said that I should keep running it to give a good analytic review of it. I have decided to remove it all together, because of a few reasons. The first is because I received about 50% of your comments saying get rid of it, and 50% saying keep it to do a review. I do not believe I should lower the quality of my blog just to provide a case study or a testimonial, since I am writing for quality, not for money. After testing Kontera on and off, my pages seem to load around 2 seconds faster each (this adds up fast!). I may try Kontera again after my blog is larger, but for now they are just a nuisance.

I would also like to thank everyone who has bookmarked my blog or one of my bigger posts like The Link Building Cookbook, as well as those who subscribe to my rss feeds.

I would also like to thank everyone who comments on my blog posts, so here is the top commentators from this month:
Sudarshan
Bihn dot Name
Matt
J.J. Merrick
Shareware
MoneyMoose

I would also like to thank everyone who signed up for rssHugger, as the new re-launch of the website has yielded fantastic results, allowing me to continue marketing it on a daily basis.