Define "It"; eBay's lukewarm viral marketing campaign

Have you seen eBay's latest television commercials with the whole "IT" theme?







Chances are if you're a member of an online community you saw it on the internet first.

(Or, say, saw it written about in a blog or, well, a blog, or perhaps a community that may be called a blog or something as well..)

I have a membership to TotalFark, one of the best $5.00 a month a person who loves news and silly news and a great online community can spend in my opinion, and we saw a couple of submission of this "What is it?" site there as well.

However, and you have to love them for this, the TF community called it out for what it was, an obvious viral marketing campaing, in the space of two submissions.

I noticed also that didn't garner the attention or internet "buzz" that the whole irritating online viral frenzy about the Segway did, and maybe that tells us a little something about how a segment of internet users are becoming more savvy to the manipulation of marketers.

Ah well, I'm thinking it may have done better on MySpace and Livejournal if they noticed it, but I haven't bothered checking up on it there at all.

Why?

Because it made me go "Eeh?" and wasn't quite exciting enough to go "Hmmmmmmmmmm...."

;)

Here's a fascinating but old article about one way viral marketers "attack" the Internet world we live in.