The Federal Trade Commission yesterday said that companies engaging in word-of-mouth marketing, in which people are compensated to promote products to their peers, must disclose those relationships.
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Word-of-mouth marketing can take any form of peer-to-peer communication, such as a post on a Web blog, a MySpace.com page for a movie character, or the comments of a stranger on a bus.
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The group cited a 2002 Wall Street Journal article on a marketing campaign by Sony Ericsson Mobile for its T68i mobile phone and digital camera. The initiative, called "Fake Tourist," involved placing 60 actors posing as tourists at attractions in New York and Seattle to demonstrate the camera phone. The actors asked passersby to take their photo, which demonstrated the camera phone's capabilities, but the actors did not identify themselves as representatives for Sony Ericsson.

Commercial Alert also singled out Tremor, a marketing division of Procter & Gamble, which has assembled a volunteer force of 250,000 teenagers to promote the company's products to friends and relatives.

My mission: To replace as many retail/shareware software as I can with first rate FREEWARE alternatives, such that one day every installed program that I use will be FREE.

But this site will not list every single free program on the planet. Sometimes less is more!

I assume that for every category there are one or two programs that anybody would want to use. This site will present you with these handful of options, filtered and picked out.

If you have better things to do than scour the web for cracks, serials, and hacked copies of the software you use, then this site is for you, because the free software that is presented here is in most cases BETTER than anything you could pay for.

I created this site because I enjoy finding, downloading and testing new software. I hope you will enjoy these programs too.

PhotoShape (Freeware 3D Image rotator) 
 Put a new perspective on things by rotating images in three dimensions. Results can be used immediately or carried over to other applications.
AviTricks classic (Freeware video editor)
 Try our popular video editor. A range of powerful features make it a serious alternative to expensive editing suites.
AviSplit classic (Freeware AVI/DivX video joiner, splitter and cutter)
 Our most popular program: a perfect blend of simplicity and utility. We’re well on our way to a million downloads of this one.
AviScreen Classic (Freeware video streaming and screen capture)
 Capture screen activity as video or bitmap images. The unique “follow the cursor option” allows you to zoom in on what’s really happening.
CombiMovie classic (Freeware mpeg joiner)   
 Combine two or more files into one continuous mpg file. Fast and easy for digital camera or Internet movies.
BoxMaker classic (Freeware 3D design/Image rotator) 
 A handy three-dimensional virtual packaging design tool.

Cooliris Previews gives you the power to browse and share Web links and rich media instantly. Just mouse over any link, and the Cooliris preview window immediately appears to show you the content. No more clicking back and forth or losing your search context. To send a link, just click.

Summary: In 2002, Google launched one of their few pay services, Google Answers. The service attracted only 800 responders in the past 4 years, and was shut down a few weeks ago. Three years ago, Matt Haughey created Ask MetaFilter, pays no money to those who answer questions, and has turned the site into a successful part of his business using, in part, Google AdSense to support the site.

Why was Matt successful where Google was not? Let's take a look.