Best. Business Model. Ever.
A new website has combined two of our favorite things: philanthropy and the nudity of strangers. Nudity for Charity (NSFW link) allows volunteers to post a probably-safe-for-work picture of themselves along with a fundraiser button for a specific charity. When their donation goal is met (usually $100 to $300), their topless or fully nude picture(s) unlock for everyone visiting the site to view. It’s the perfect place for moneyless philanthropic exhibitionists and the people with spare cash who love them. Right now there are a small number of women using the site (about half with their donation goals already met), and there’s only one guy. He’s asking for a mere $5 charity donation to show his nudes. Nobody’s donated yet. Probably because I — um, I mean “they” — can get free nude pictures of 200 guys by simply posting a W4M ad on Craigslist, not even asking for nudes. Hey, don’t judge me for having a hobby.
So, Facebook Still Exists.
Facebook is being sued by a father in New York for using pictures of minors who liked a product in Facebook Social Ads without the consent of their parents, including Facebook’s use of his child’s picture without his consent. Social Ads started in 2007 and show a Facebook user who interacted with a brand or service. The lawsuit argues parental consent should be required to use the picture of a minor in this way regardless of whether or not the minor clicked a “Like” button or reviewed a product. The lawsuit also takes issue with Facebook including pictures of minors in their Friend Finder — which recommends users other members might know — without parental consent.
Facebook is teaming up with TrialPay to start paying social gamers in Facebook credits to watch advertisements in games and in Facebook’s sidebars. The average video ad view will pay one credit (about 10 cents). The credits previously were only usable to buy virtual goods in Facebook games, but now credits can also be used to buy real goods at Facebook Deals. Facebook Deals launched April 26th and is Facebook’s version of Groupon. Those deals are currently only available in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco. In addition, all Facebook games are going to be required to accept Facebook credits by this summer. So if you don’t live in a city with Deals, you can still get Farmville cows or something stupid. And if you do live in a city with Deals, you only have to watch about 550 video ads to get two free tickets to see Keith Urban in concert. Uh, great?
[news-links]
- Nudity for charity? God bless America. (DangerousMinds)
- Facebook sued for using kids’ pictures in Social Ads and Friend Finder without parental consent. (Yahoo)
- Facebook starts doling out Facebook Credits to users who watch certain ads. (InsideFacebook)
[/news-links]
[news-morenews]
- After making a reported $10 million by twitter-promoting (perhaps illegally) the penny stock of an audio company he owned a 12.9% stake in, 50 Cent has announced he’ll be releasing his brand of headphones with a different audio company after all. (CrunchGear)
- A skin care company’s publicist emailed news agencies offering them $100 for every reader they could convince to buy a $500 product using a supposedly objective news piece. Instead a journalist published their shady offer for the readers to see. (Poynter)
- After AT&T initiated a bandwidth cap last week, a majority of Americans with internet access now have an internet data cap (56%). On Friday, two technology policy groups asked the FCC to investigate the business practice to see if it’s being ethically enforced, if consumers are being properly informed, and if the caps are truly in line with current technological capacity or if internet providers are behaving in “anticompetitive monopolistic ways”. (ArsTechnica, .pdf file of the letter to the FCC here)
[/news-morenews]
[news-stats]
- 31.2% of all online ad impressions are made on Facebook, followed by Yahoo in distant second place at 10.1%. Of all online ads, the largest ad buyer is AT&T; 1.8% of all ad impressions are for AT&T products. (ComScore)
- Spending on advertisements at social media sites is estimated to hit $8.3 billion in 2015, not including revenue from virtual goods, social games, social marketing, or social commerce. For comparison, TV advertisement spending totaled $68.7 billion last year while newspaper ad spending dropped to $22.8 billion and radio ad spending dropped to $15.3 billion. (Mashable)
- The average Facebook post gets half of its “Likes” within an hour and twenty minutes, 80% within seven hours, and 95% within 22 hours. In other words, don’t expect any notifications on all your unrecognized brilliance from two days ago when you were liveblogging Buffy reruns while drunk. (VisualLoop, picture via Cyanide & Happiness)
[/news-stats]