P- Now, one of the latest buzzwords in e-commerce is 'viral marketing' – using the power of the internet to advertise a product or service. I'm joined in the Studio today by Michael MacAulay of the buzz.com website which monitors internet trends. Michael, what exactly is 'viral marketing'? M- Hi, Tony. The idea of viral marketing is basically that the internet does your advertising for you. A good example is internet email providers like Hotmail or Yahoo. Every time someone sends you an email using a Yahoo address you get that little 'Do you Yahoo?' message at the end – basically advertising what Yahoo does, while still providing you with the service – the message you've received. P- But it's not limited to internet email providers, is it? M- Not at all. Hotmail is perhaps the most famous example, but there's lots and lots of stuff on the web that can be seen as viral marketing. You might get sent, for example, a little game to play on your PC or a funny animation, something like that. More often than not, they're advertising a product or an event. The initial idea of viral marketing was that it cost next to nothing.