Epidemic Marketing was a short-lived

dot-com company A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com (alternatively rendered dot.com, dot com, dotcom or .com), is a company that does most of its business on the Internet, usually through a website on the World Wide Web that uses the popular top-level domain ". ...

headquartered in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Colorado that operated in the

viral marketing Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way tha ...

sector. Before it closed its doors in June 2000, it employed approximately 60 people. Its website was located at www.epidemic.com.

Operation

Epidemic attempted to generate marketing revenue by paying customers to attach links to internet businesses in their outgoing mail.Sandoval, Greg
"Start-up with pricey Super Bowl ad goes bust"
''

Cnet ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...

.com'', 14 June 2000. Accessed February 28 2014. Presumably, after seeing their websites jump in popularity, clients would pay Epidemic a greater amount than was paid to customers. Although Epidemic considered its efforts as viral marketing, it operated in a very similar fashion to

spam Spam may refer to: * Spam (food), a canned pork meat product * Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages ** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages ** Messaging spam, spam targeting users of instant messaging ( ...

and bot nets, albeit with willing end-users who were receiving paid compensation.

History

The company was launched in September 1999. It raised $7.6 million in

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

in its first round of financing. The company spent $1.6 million to secure a 30-second ad during

Super Bowl XXXIV Super Bowl XXXIV was an American football game played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta on January 30, 2000, to determine the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1999 NFL season, 1999 season. The National Football Conference (NFC) champ ...

. According to national account manager James Wallen, the ad drew "little response from consumers but helped to attract important business partners." Business plans apparently failed and the company attempted to merge with a California-based firm. When this failed, the company shuttered in June 2000.

Unrelated SEO company

As of April 2018, there exists an unrelated Denver-based

search engine optimization Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of Web traffic, website traffic to a website or a web page from web search engine, search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic (known as "natural" or "Organ ...

company also named Epidemic Marketing.

References

{{Dot-com Bubble 1999 establishments in Colorado 2000 disestablishments in Colorado Companies based in Denver Internet properties disestablished in 2000 Marketing companies established in 1999 Defunct companies based in Colorado Defunct online companies of the United States Dot-com bubble Marketing companies of the United States Internet properties established in 1999

Operation

History

Unrelated SEO company

See also

References