TekChakra.com

I just read about the so called new “viral video website” - computerchacha.com, that Makaan.com / People Group has created and hopes will generate a large amount of traffic via viral forwarding.

Folks over at the People Group are claiming that their videos are highly viral and give them a lot of free publicity. I beg to differ… specifically with this new so called “viral video” (I havent seen any of their their past videos, so cannot comment on them)

Why do I strongly feel this will be a failing viral campaign?

OK, firstly - WATCH the video…  here - http://computerchacha.com/

Then read on…

These guys have absolutely NO clue as to what constitutes into making a viral (video) campaign or a any online viral media unit. They probably spent Rs 15 lakhs to make this downright awfully non-viral animated clip - that completely lacks all incentives that are present in viral videos.

Its so bad and its such a hardsell, that it makes me laugh! The name Makaan appearing every 30 seconds… and more than 5 times in the video. Sheesh.

Frankly, its a downright flop - if the aim is to have viewers forward it to their friends. But, i’m guessing they will use it for their TV campaign. And, they can probably also bombard all their current users / members on their own chain of websites.(perhaps outside sites too… as their actual “Send To Friend form” - only asks one to enter their friends’ email addresses… no names anywhere… so there is a potential loophole here for them to write a script that loops and use this form (note: captca is absent). Not that they will use it - but who knows?

Also, this “Send-To-Friend” form lacks the ability for anyone to send it to all their Gmail Contacts, YahooMail Contacts, RediffMail Contacts, Facebook Friends, Myspace Friends etc… in one click - which is what all new age Web2.0 viral forwarding systems do. So, why is this option absent? beats me. Their site, design and forms are so smelling of the “20 minute site flipping”.

Finally, theirs no way to embed the video on Youtube, blogs, Facebook, Orkut etc. So, no real excitement and Social Media Marketing happening here. Big mistake.

The people who created this (as an online viral video) and approved it, really need to check out the creativity and uniqueness that goes into creating REAL VIRAL VIDEOS.

For starters, just look at the mentos pepsi video… or any other ad video that your friends like so much - that they post it on your facebook and orkut walls and scrap books. The real question is… do you really think you would post this video on your friends’ pages or forward it?

Naahh..  not me. I wont. And I doubt that others will too - thereby holding the Viral Video to cross the so called “magic number“- that is an essential ingredient for anything to go viral.

— Vishal Lamba    Filed under: Uncategorized