The strategy of viral marketing gets customers to sell a product to other customers on behalf of the company.

That often means convincing your friends to climb on the bandwagon, and sometimes you get a cut if they buy something.133 Some might argue that that means you re selling out your friends (or at least selling to your friends) in exchange for a piece of the action.

Others might say you re simply sharing the wealth with your buddies. Have you ever passed along names of your friends or sent them to a Web site such as hotmail.

com? If so, what happened? How do you feel about this practice? L01