---
title: "Blogsphere viral marketing"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/4/22/blogsphere-viral-marketing.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/4/22/blogsphere-viral-marketing.html"
published: "2004-04-22T20:46:00"
updated: "2004-04-22T20:46:00"
tags: ["Cool Tools"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "Gavin knows how to do viral marketing well . I'm writing this, arn't I? :) [Update] Here's another great viral marketer: “Anyway, John offers an interesting deal on his website. He writes: Imagine you are applying for a…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Blogsphere viral marketing

By Roy Osherove April 22, 2004 In [Cool Tools](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-tools)

**Historical article** · Originally published April 22, 2004; technical details may be outdated.

[Gavin knows how to do viral marketing well](http://weblogs.asp.net/gavinjoyce/archive/2004/04/21/117477.aspx). I'm writing this, arn't I? :)

**_\[Update\]_**

Here's another great viral marketer:

“Anyway, John offers an [interesting deal](http://www.jkador.com/brainteaser/answer.htm) on his website. He writes:

_Imagine you are applying for a job and the interviewer asks you this question. How would you handle it? Send me your most creative answer to [\[email removed\]](http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog/admin/[email%20removed]) and I’ll use your answer with credit to you in the book. I will also send you a signed copy. This is not a trick question. Any prisoner in the country can try it._

**_You are a prisoner in solitary confinement serving a life sentence. It is Friday afternoon and you absolutely must have a cigarette. The only person who can give you one is the guard outside your cell. What do you do to get a cigarette? “_**

(via [Gretchen](http://blogs.msdn.com/JobsBlog/archive/2004/04/22/118541.aspx))

## More in Cool Tools

[All posts in Cool Tools](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-tools)

- May 1, 2004

    ### [New version for NUnit Add-in](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/5/1/new-version-for-nunit-add-in.html)

- Apr 28, 2004

    ### [\[Cool Tool\] NotePad2](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/4/28/cool-tool-notepad2.html)

- Apr 20, 2004

    ### [\[Tool\] WMI Strongly Typed Class Generator](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/4/20/tool-wmi-strongly-typed-class-generator.html)

- Apr 15, 2004

    ### [New version of Data Access Application Block available](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/4/15/new-version-of-data-access-application-block-available.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/