By now, many of you have probably seen PeopleOfWalmart.com, a viral website with photographs from interesting folks doing their shopping at Walmart. After being live for a short period of time, a number of news organizations wrote articles about the site, and it took off from there. Millions of visits later, and it was another viral phenomenon.
When I first heard about the site, I didn’t bother to check out the registration date to see just how quickly the word was spreading, and it was something I wished I had done just out of curiosity. This morning, a couple of friends sent me links to a new viral site as well as its sister sites. Some of the links might be inappropriately suggestive for some, although there isn’t any nudity in them:
- HotChicksWithHotDogsInTheirMouths.com
- HotChicksPickingUpDogShit.com
- HotChicksWithDogsWithBoners.com
The links are for websites that have stupid funny sophomoric photos, which is probably why I found them amusing. The domain names were all registered between September 15 and today (September 24th). I don’t know just how viral they’ve gone, but I am sure it’s spreading pretty quickly.
It would be interesting to have followed the route it took to get to me. I bet there are people studying how quickly something on the Internet goes viral. If not, I think it’s something that should be studied by big brands and marketers.
Perhaps this is actually a case study in the making, since the registrant’s email address is associated with Mekanism.com, a NYC and San Francisco-based production company.