Let The Viral Marketing Begin: Mysterious 'Paranormal Activity 3' Video Pops Up

Paramount is known for doing a viral marketing campaign for its Paranormal Activity films.  The term "viral" means that the advertising media spreads like an epidemic, causing a surge in ticket sales opening weeked.  It worked last year with Paranormal Activity 2 and the year before that with Paranormal Activity.  Now, Shock Till You Drop has released a promotional video sent to them by Paramount for the Henry Joost/ Ariel Schulman directed third film.  Get this -- they recieved the clip on a VHS accompanied with a VCR. Genius.

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VHS Officially Dead

Trivia question: What did VHS stand for?Answer: Video Home System.But did you notice the question, what did VHS stand for? It's done. As in completely. Distribution Video Audio in Burbank was the last supplier and distributor of new VHS tapes, and according to its president, Ryan Kugler, the sun has finally set on the once proud, never perfect format."It's dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt," Kugler told the Los Angeles Times. "I was the last one buying VHS and the last one selling it, and I'm done. Anything left in warehouse we'll just give away or throw away."The rise of DVDs officially supplanted VHS as the top format in 2003, but the Times reports that even until 2005, VHS still managed $1.5 billion in business. The last major studio film released on VHS, though, was A History of Violence in 2006, and if there's no product, there's not much hope for your future. The advent of digital video recorders, like TiVo, also cemented the fate of video tape.Still, don't feel bad for VHS; it was never better than Betamax, anyway. And it had a good run, a longer one than standard DVDs will enjoy, thanks to the rush of Blu-Ray technology.The only thing left to count down is how long new blank VHS tapes will be sold, and whether or not the electronics manufacturers who make those awful DVD/VHS hybrid machines will sever their links to the past.