Another “we are the media” indicator

Yesterday I pointed out a new startup called, Refer.ly, that aims to reward people for referring products and services to their friends.

I just saw a commercial for Directv, which has a referral program that is pretty awesome. If you refer someone to Directv, you get $10 off of your bill…every month. Presumably as long as your friend stays a subscriber to Directv. The commercial shows a dude that gets $30 off a month on his bill because he referred three friends. That’s awesome.

I love this trend. I’ve long thought that this is a far better use of “marketing” dollars than the traditional means. And by traditional means, I mean anything other than word of mouth. Think about it, if you can get people to talk about your product to your friends, could anything be better than that?

Nope.