Crowdseeding.

I can't imagine I'm the first person to coin this phrase, but Googling produces very little on it. It's not rocket-science. Just as cloud-seeding produces rain to order, it seems to me that the ready-made crowds of the online world can be seeded in a way that might ultimately precipitate a storm of interest in a product or service. But the transmission is not that of buzz or viral marketing which merely seek to replicate the hype of old-style marketing and stimulate "awareness" of the product or service.

No, this is a synthesis of the informed conversations of Chris Locke's Gonzo Marketing, the connectivity of Malcolm Gladwell's mavens, connecters and salespeople, the disruptive non-linearity of Winslow Farrell's hit prediction and the prosletysing of Seth Godin's sneezers.

The communication facility of the internet is uniquely able to bring together crowds of people with similar mindsets, outlooks and attitudes and to do so in numbers that just wasn't possible before. The key is that they choose to search each other out. They don't sidle up to each other because they literally or metaphorically like the look of someone (as is the case in social networks), but rather they viscerally recognise kindred spirits by dint of their rants, wit or actions.

It's opinion-based networking with the emphasis very much on the opinions rather than the networking. They are willing to be convinced. They'll despise you (and worse) if you try to dupe them. But identify your product/service's impassioned and thus, in some sense, idealistic "crowd"; let them trial your product/service and react to your claims of why its remarkable; and, if you're not found wanting, you'll get a very big bang for your buck.