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LivingSocial Acquires BuyYourFriendADrink.com Posted: 09 Apr 2009 03:00 PM PDT Today, D.C. based LivingSocial announced the acquisition of BuyYourFriendADrink.com, an automated sampling solution for the beer, wine, and spirits industry. The site was one of the first sites for letting you purchase drinks for your friends that can then be redeemed at bars and restaurants around the country. According to the company’s website, over 20,000 drinks have been served so far. The way BuyYourFriendADrink.com (BYFAD) works is extremely simple. Users log in to the site, pick a friend they’d like to purchase drink for, and then send it to them. This is a perfect fit for LivingSocial which is tightly integrated into the social graph and could soon become the largest application on Facebook (it’s currently the 3rd largest in terms of monthly active users). While there are tons of “send your friends a drink” applications on Facebook, none of the existing ones actually result in a physical drink (as far as I know). Integrated into LivingSocial’s existing applications, such as “Restaurants”, I could see this taking off pretty quickly. As founder Steven Cohn states, “Brand advertisers can now reach users who have indicated that they like a specific product, brand or category, and drive sampling in a completely trackable and viral manner.” This is a great monetization model and soon enough you may see drinks that your friends have been bought show up in your news feed. BYFAD already incorporates into bars’ point of sale (POS) systems, which enables the company to track how much was consumed. Hopefully this doesn’t turn into automated status updates which state “John just had four glasses of wine at O’Neill’s Pub … he must be pretty drunk now!” This is a logical expansion of LivingSocial. I’m excited to see where this leads in the near future.

12seconds Monetizing Microblogging with UGC Ads? Posted: 09 Apr 2009 08:03 AM PDT Microblogging video service 12seconds.tv has added user-generated commercial options to its service today. 12seconds has emerged as a Twitter-like version of video sharing, with the bite sized update format being applied to its specific type of media. Add in Twitter integration and a recent iPhone application with a unique workaround, and it’s clear that 12seconds is determined to offer its features to as many users as possible, in every way possible. But what about monetization? Creating revenue around the microblogging phenomenon has been difficult for the cream of the crop, so what does 12seconds think it can do in order to begin making money from the trend? User generated commercials. Called 12omercials, these tiny ads will be sponsored by brands, and created by 12seconds users. The point is to offer “dedicated” recommendations to the world, and generate some revenue all the while. The reward for users could be goods or other prizes, all determined by the sponsors themselves. In this way, user generated commercials act as contests of sorts, with incentives coming from brands, extended to users directly through the 12seconds platform. The sponsored commercials will automatically be streamed through the user’s Twitter streams as well, making it the first “tweetable video commercial.” Leveraging the Twitter microblogging platform to extend the reachability of the 12omercials is yet another interesting take in the newest 12seconds model–one which could be slightly controversial when you consider the other factors involved with sponsored “posts.” As far as blogging goes, we’ve all moved past some of the negative connotations that go along with sponsored posts, and even if we haven’t moved past it we’ve accepted it as an existing portion of the blogging economy. Is the 12omercial the next step in this trend? 12seconds already has its first two paying clients that are anxious to try out the new 12omercials, which includes LG. I’m anxious myself, to see how the public will take to sponsored microblogging updates. As far as brand-related content is concerned, I’d even like to see 12seconds go so far as to aggregate sponsored tweets and provide them as brand-specific pools of data for other users to consider for recommendations. Whether or not the recommendations potential of sponsored commercials is part of the future plan, 12seconds has informed that the mobile component is certainly in the pipeline. Mobile integration for 12omercials could be another good iPhone app that could be used to create ads that are directed to mobile users as well.

SmartyPig Makes Mobile Banking Social Posted: 09 Apr 2009 06:12 AM PDT Social banking service SmartyPig is going mobile today, with compatibility for the iPhone, Blackberry and a number of other cellular devices. From the mobile site, SmartyPig users will be able to access their account information while on the go. They can also view the current status of their savings goals and their friends’ goals. Other functions for the new mobile offering include the ability to track the history of a transaction, and make any additional transfers directly from the cell phone. Along with iPhone optimization, SmartyPig has taken several other handsets into account when creating the new mobile site. The upcoming Palm Pre, HTC, Blackberry and Android are all supported by SmartyPig. Adding mobile support was a great next step for SmartyPig, which has seen several requests from users. The update enhances the overall SmartyPig service and brings the company that much closer to having a robust feature set that establishes it as a true banking service. Take into consideration SmartyPig’s previous OFX integration, which enables users to track their goals inside other online money managment sites like Mint and Wesabe, the mobility of SmartyPig is becoming a far-reaching feature that’s moving the company forward. It’s clear that both technological capabilities as well as accessibility were two important facets for SmartyPig to concentrate on in order to grow, and the company is putting its service in front of as many users as possible regardless of their device, location, or online banking tool of choice. Of course, the social aspect of SmartyPig is one of its central and crowning features, and even through SmartyPig’s recent developments it’s clear that the company is staying focused on social banking, even in its OFX offering. Bringing these social banking features to the mobile arena is a unique advancement from what we’ve seen in the larger space. There are several ways in which this conjunction can be expounded upon, especially as SmartyPig is turning to other banking services in order to spread its own reach. I’m anticipating a continued push from SmartyPig on this end.

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