I was hoping you might have an “ego feed” or the like that would do as well as a tagging inbox.

I like the idea of incendiary marketing as opposed to ‘viral’. It communicates the sense of an idea catching and spreading, not to mention the imflaming of desire that you allude to in your last bit, without the connotation of infection.

Your comment that messages aren’t incendiary or viral (or guerilla, for that matter) also seems in accord with what Tycho from Penny Arcade is saying, that the best a marketer can do, whether s/he is marketing products or themselves, is send an interesting message and hope it catches on. Everything else is in the hands of the recipient.

Anyway, good point.

I hadn’t thought to differentiate between breeds of marketing. To me the only fun marketing involved setting fires. In fact, my philosophy of marketing was essentially incendiary:

- Markets are conversations, and
- Conversation is fire. Therefore
- Marketing is arson.

This kept dull clients away. It was a way of saying, “If you want to set fires, I’m your guy. If you want somebody to write press releases, I’m not.”

i think arson maps better to ‘viral’ than to ‘guerilla’. You want an idea, or knowledge, or reputation, or whatever — to spread. To catch (like a disease or like fire). So find dry tinder and use good matches.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think messages are either incendiary or viral. There are a few exceptions, of course. But what catches best are inventions that mother necessity: things you need to have as soon as you know what they are. And those are a lot more rare than things somebody simply needs to sell.