Your Virus May Spread But Does It Kill?

I was watching this show the other night on National Geographic about the h1n1 pandemic. The interesting thing is that the h1n1 virus, while it spreads super awesome does not kill very many people. Actually it kills less then .01 percent of the people who get it infected by it. Compare that to the 2003 SARS epidemic that infected 8,098 people and killed 774 world wide. Giving it a 9.6% chance of killing. Much more effective then h1n1. One of the things the show also talked about is how many people don't know that a virus goal actually NOT to kill people. Its goal is to reproduce and sustain life for as long as possible. When its living in a human and the human dies then it dies too. So how does this apply to internet marketing? Well everyone is trying to create something "viral". But most of the time they don't have a end goal. I know some of the most gifted programers/designers in the world who have created some of the most viral websites on the internet yet can't figure out how to profit from them. But there are several people who do "get it". Remember the super viral 2 girls 1 cup. Would you believe me if I told you that site sold for 6 figures? Know the super viral funny lolcat site icanhascheezburger? Did you know that site sold for a group of investors a couple years ago for 2 million dollars? What about super nuclear viral site hot-or-not which let you just vote "hot or not" on people that sold for 20 million dollars ? Super life caster/viral video maker iJustine has turned her 5 mins of fame into a huge brand. She now does tons of videos for giant brands. But for every incredible story of a viral property that made a lot of money there is hundreds of starving youtube stars that had their 5 minutes and millions of views... In fact the last couple years at SXSW in talking to the biggest stars on youtube I have been surprised to find they most make only a couple thousand a month (from youtube AdSense revshare). So what are you doing that is viral and what is your end goal for it?