Back when Yahoo! was the dominant Web destination and Filgifts was just a toddler, companies wishing to make a dent online relied much on advertising schemes like cross site promotions and direct ad placements to generate eyeballs. Web 2.0 saw the rise of a new breed of online marketers: the viral first, traditional second type.

With viral methods yielding better adoption, traction and ROI rates, buzz marketing has become the preferred promotional platform for launching and sustaining an online business. The smart search marketer understands this and prioritizes link building initiatives that have the potential of creating hundreds of links from a single viral idea over direct link building methods like link buys, link drops and link exchanges. The virus is transmitted from one prospect to another through user generated content (UGC) sites like blogs, forums and review sites. Marketers understand the buzz value of UGC sites. I call it the Multiplier Effect.

Here’s how the Multiplier Effect works. A feature on Techcrunch reaches thousands of early adopters and is instrumental in leading readers to either two conclusions: adoption or rejection. A scathing review from Michael Arrington would almost certainly mean a death sentence as the spirit of the Techcrunch review would be echoed over and over again by countless Arringtonians. Similar to how restaurants treat the published food critic as God, the Web critic that’s read by hundreds is somebody that deserves tender blogging care.

Now what about those bloggers who actually demand tender blogging care. I call it blogmail (blog + blackmail).