Borat, a fictional character created by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, represents himself as a fictional Kazakh journalist who is visiting the United States to learn about “the greatest country in the world” and promote goodwill for his (fictional) homeland of Kazakhstan (real).

The film, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" has topped the box office charts for the first two weeks since its release.

According to a story in Yahoo News, the fictional Borat movie has affected the real Kazakhstan. The web traffic to Kazakhstan’s real state news agency Kazinform has doubled, most likely based on a prominent link on Borat's promotional page, which represents itself as the "Ministry of Information" for Kazakhstan.

“According to data provided by Russian Web site traffic monitoring service Mail.ru, the number of unique visitors to Kazinform's Web site has nearly doubled to 27,000 a week in the run-up to the movie's premiere.”

Like the Diet Coke and Mentos craze of a few months past, the country of Kazakhstan receives the collateral damage (benefit) of the boorish and offensive Borat. Once again, YouTube plays prominently.  A search for "Borat" on YouTube shows several million views of Borat-related videos.

Like Napolean Dynamite of a few years past, it is another example of the power of viral marketing and the collateral traffic that grass roots buzz and online links can create.  Both movies have ridden the wave of young people that naturally use technology to drive popularity of products they like.