Nicholas GallHas social software really led us to this? According to the NY Times Bits blog, nearly 234,000 facebookers were defriended by their so-called friends looking to score a free hamburger. Burger King ran a promotion on Facebook that gave someone a coupon for a free hamburger if they would drop 10 friends. Harsh but hilarious.
Facebook called a halt to the promotion because the promotion actually told the dropped friends they had been dropped…for a hamburger. Ouch! Something about privacy issues. How about just plain human cruelty issues? Can you top this one?
I would really like to me the person would came up with such a wickedly perverse marketing campaign. I think we would really hit it off.
PS I would never drop 10 Facebook friends for a mere hamburger. I’d need at least a Triple Whopper with Cheese. uhhhHHHhhrghhhuuuuHHHggrruhhhHHhh
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Brian Burke January 22, 2009 at 5:27 am
The word “Friend” takes on an entirely new meaning on Facebook. Since the acquisition cost of a Facebook friend is very low, the market value of those friends is also very low – 1/10th of a hamburger.
My kids (both university age) have 450-500 friends each on Facebook. While certainly a few of those Facebook friends are true friends (in the traditional sense) there are many hundreds more that have a low relationship value.
While this is an amusing social experiment, there may in fact be a real business model in buying Facebook friend lists. If people are willing to drop their Facebook friends for 37 cents each I’m quite sure those same people would also be willing to sell their Facebook friends contact details to an enterprising marketer – at a price.
2 Nick Gall January 22, 2009 at 11:05 am
The commodification of friendship. I love it.