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Viral marketing approaches (not to be confused with computer viruses) take clever little online ideas and try to make them spread by online “word of mouth” which usually means friends emailing other friends.

This year’s big viral winner may be ElfYourself, which is showing nothing less than stunning traffic over the past few weeks – looks like it’s beating out many major sites and might even approach the top 100 sites this week as it spreads. [nope – looks like it peaked near Christmas at about site 250 per Alexa measures].

My friend and neighbor Ilana sent me an Elfyourself and within 30 minutes I’d sent out one myself even though I usually avoid sending people anything “fun” online to avoid cluttering up their boxes.

Expedia vs Elfyourself traffic per Alexa. Alexa is not very reliable but it’s good for generic approaches like this. Note that it’s “today’s” measure rather than the three month average that is of interest here since the site just startup up a few weeks ago: Alexa traffic comparison