Keeping up with your friends on social networks is hard work (enough so that many of us spend hours at it every week). Wouldn’t you like to make a few bucks for your trouble?
Meet UrTurn, a new startup that hopes to create a unified virtual currency across all major social networks. The site has just launched in a public beta, and is currently available as a Facebook app (with MySpace coming shortly). The first 250 TechCrunch readers who sign up using the code ERAS4 here will receive 500 bonus points.
In some respects UrTurn acts like a virtual pyramid scheme – users can get points by inviting their friends (and even more points if those friends add the application). But users can also get points by performing everyday actions. These earn fewer points, but they add up – if you were to add two friends, five photos, and two status messages on Facebook every day for a year, you’d have enough points for an iPod Touch.
Users spend their points at UrTurn’s virtual store, where they they can buy gift cards or digital gadgets (we can expect the store to grow as the site expands). Alternatively, users can put their points up in a marketplace and sell them for cash. You’re not going to get rich this way, but getting paid to surf Facebook is certainly an appealing prospect. In an effort to reduce gaming of the system, the site requires users to tie their accounts to an active PayPal account
At this point UrTurn is exploring a number of ways to monetize their application. Besides standard advertising, UrTurn is considering placing a tax on every marketplace transaction. The site is also planning to release an API that will let them integrate and have a rev-share with other applications, allowing them to distribute points based on usage of third party apps (the site will launch a pilot program with five appssavvy apps next month).
Virtual currencies have had a long history of failure – in the late 90’s Beenz.com unsuccessfully tried to establish a worldwide currency that could rival the dollar and the pound (that company closed its doors in 2001). UrTurn is going to have to fend off countless users trying to abuse the system, and they may have a tough time monetizing their app when so little effort is required on the user’s part. That said, social networks are craving an effective micropayment system, and virtual currencies may be the answer. Acebucks, which we covered last fall, is another company that is trying to establish itself as a unified currency for social networks.
$50 gift card = 50 million points?
(sorry to nitpick, but this is actually confusing)
“reate a unified virtual currently” – do you mean currency?
Their website is horrendous.
Good catch Herbert, thanks.
@3
I agree, the site could use some work. I’m intrigued by the idea, though.
Agree – a bit of a gradient/reflection overkill.
When I see such sites … it reminds me of yet another internet bubble!
Reminds me of the facebook application called “sparechange”, but with greater ambitions. Certainly not for the discerning web user.
LOL! “UrTurn acts like a virtual pyramid scheme” … wow that sounds so compelling, where can I sign up?
“if you were to add two friends, five photos, and two status messages on Facebook every day for a year, you’d have enough points for an iPod Touch.”
Yes, but they won’t have the $ to actually buy & send you one.
You know, there are a lot of real startups out there that could use the press…
anyone else having problems with the promo code?
I don’t see any way UrTurn can monetize this. There is no way they are going to be able to get enough money through API licensing or whatever to keep up with Facebook user’s activity–we’re all too addicted to social networking/wasting time–not to mention the activities of users of any other social networks they join.
I tried to go to the link to log in and it… well was confusing at best, and in the end, unsuccessful. It said my info was either not correct, when I entered a username/password, or it was already taken. I doubt someone else already has taken claytonroche.
Cool idea though, I do love pyramid schemes, though for some reason my friends don’t seem to. Odd
Their site is very slow right now. I like the idea… not sure if it will work.
I dont see how to link a paypal account. looked quite a few places.
WTF. How much did they pay TC to post this? The site sux, slow as hell, and I got the all-too-familiar Apache Tomcat error page a couple of times and eventually gave up to register. Why the heck would anyone want to use Tomcat for this kind of thing?
I wish TC has some kind of quality control over what gets published and what gets thrown. Like. this. piece. of. crap.
Doesn’t anyone pay attention anymore or are you just quick to cut down any new idea before it has a chance to grow? The article did say it was a new start up which means there will be a few problems that have to be worked out. Don’t most web sites have problems at first, even Myspace and Facebook have made a few mistakes. ( I can think of one that Facebook had recently that left egg on their FACE!!). If you don’t want to earn something for doing what you normally do, then don’t. I personally had NO problems signing up and am halfway to earning a gift card, which will help alot in todays economy. And I didn’t have to do anything more than a few extra clicks. Wish I could find more sites like this!!
Agreed on Business Model Comments -
- Cost per acquisition-based models could theoretically be broken down to discrete activities like uploading a photo. Measuring and paying people based on that level of detail probably won’t scale well from a data perspective.
- Plus, you have to have someone willing to pay for that specific activity. In that event, UrTurn could generate a CPC fee, and share a discounted portion in the form of points for merchandise. Facebook and Flickr will never pay much to get more traffic. In theory, it could create an incentive to test out a new Facebook app, but there’s not a ton of revenue streaming out of those.
If you want a universal wallet available on any social network, see http://widget.m...mentWidget.html.
uh oh, the msn cashback stuff is dead !
http://search.m...n.com/cashback/
people made the same stupid mistake again and again 1.0, 2.0 … upto x.0 what a world!
Recommend to FB users to check it out – so easy to sign up! Am excited to be accumulating points for activities I already do on FB!
21 comments…is this site in the deadpool yet?
I am not sure you are all getting the point.
You can not access a user’s information hrough FB without first being someone’s friend. This startup doesnt give a hill of beans about virtual money. (Yes, I said hill of beans).
You login, pass your information to friends within FB and now, not only do I as a marketer have your information, I additionally have access to all of your friends information.
All that I now need to do is aggregate that information and I am now able to market to you according to your demographic and psychographic information.
And, technically by this point, you have already opt’d in for it.
VC bucks are around. Let’s raise more ideas and make more Web 2.0 labeled startups to burn notes, as along as we can collect more heads.
Cool marketplace! Great idea and nice to be rewarded for networking activities. Thanks TechCrunch for posting about this.
here’s the local paper’s coverage of this startup:
http://blog.mli...launched_i.html
Keen to see whether this idea will work at all.
Let’s put this one straight into the deadpool. These are the kinds of bound-to-fail ideas that can only exist in bubbles.
Prop’s to a fellow Michigan Startup! Go UrTurn…
To all, I know the founder of UrTurn quite well, have a great amount of respect for UrTurn, and feel that they have a wonderful model here. They are in a great place and are executing on a great opportunity. So maybe things are not perfect… where are your startups?
Point here is, they have hit on something and do have a wonderful plan for monetization, bare with them and you will see it. After speaking with the Urturn founder, I have a clear understanding of what their model is and it’s very cool and simple!
Hats off to a great little startup out of MICHIGAN of all places. Look out gang, theres more coming from where these guys are from! Keep an eye on Urturn and the rest of the Digital Edge Mi community- ever hear of Circlebuilder.com? How about ParkingCarma.com? We’ve got some strong ones coming outta MI!
BTW, if you look at the points model you can actually accrue points pretty easily. I got over 1000 in very short time, with very little effort. And they DO already have the Gift Cards, iTouch, and iPhones waiting for the person with the points to redeem!
#16, #20, #24 – founders. obviously.
anyway, im happy to see a real startup featured…even if it is terrible.
Joe I agree…Michigan is a great place for startups!
digggity dumb.
WRT #22 and #28, what exactly is the business model? Is it access to the user activities to build a better demographic profile and provide more targetted advertising? Does the ToS provide for UrTurn to bury the user in marketing or sell the data?
Or is this a way to build market data and sell aggregated behavior and segmentation analysis? The UrTurn site is noticeably silent on its model and how the data will be used.
#’s 16 and 18, Kathy and Lisa are total schills, yet they think we are stupid enough to believe their interest is organic. GTFO you losers. Tell us about “today’s economy” a little more Kathy, I wanna know, really. Go finish your English degree first please. Can you say P-Y-R-A-M-I-D S-C-H-E-M-E. what is with all the gimmickry.
Oh, I almost forgot M.donna, Joe Minock, and GregG. It is as if they don’t understand the business model has to be sustainable, they think if U of Michigan grads are behind it, it is all the matters. That is close to the mentality that left us with the dot.com bubble. Thankfully there are no real markets involved with any of these crap companies.
lol @29, nice catch, they made me too mad to see if anyone else figured it out
To Malcolm,
I believe the correct phrase is digggity diggity dumb, oh yeah. All the same, good luck to urturn with that idea. Too bad to. It’s a cool domain name.
I’m going to set up facebook farms in china to get pts.
Sad that the founders or their angel friends are posting comments to raise the PR. The comments are so unnatural. Nobody writes like that unless they are paid to write a testimonial with points….
A points model can work but not that way. There is too little effort required by the user to earn points for the company to generate any real revenue
joined in, used the code, got only the standard 200 points.
You can’t tell me that the application already got 250 signups using the code as the facebook group has only aprox 40 fans of the app.
myspace just banned apps like this that offer incentives for spamming other users:
http://valleywa...d-facebook-apps
rethink your business model, guys.
It’s the third Friday of the month, must be time for another “hey, why don’t we pay people to use our service” startup. Obsessive cent-chasers are still not an attractive advertising target market. If a gift card is actually going to make a difference to #16 in “today’s economy”, given that genuine inflation for essentials like petrol and food is widely believed to be around 12%, then there’s not much point in trying to flog her a new car.
(Silly me, it is, of course, the fourth Friday of the month. Teach me to work backwards from the end in months that are perfectly capable of having five Fridays.)
e-gold has been online for a decade and still works great. True, it is under attack by the FEDs in the US, but here in Europe it is still growing and in Asia it has exploded….
5 million users is nothing to Paypal’s 60 million, but I’d say it is pretty successfull
#29, No, I am not a founder and I really don’t care if you believe that or not. It sounds to me like you and #33 and #40 are jealous! Maybe none of you had the guts to put your idea out there and take a chance so it makes you feel good to bash someone who has. Like I said before, if you don’t like the idea or the site, don’t use it. Personally, me and my English degree think that this company will go places, even without your endorsements!!
That’s “I and my English degree think”, Kathy. Subject takes the nom.
(Yes, very cheap, I know.)
never gonna work. Makes you look cheap on your profile!
Great stite, therefore we offer also free advertisement online in facebook.
have a look: http://www.nomsn.com
@25 i love the last bit of news coverage:
Sendo recruited Henderson, a regular user of social networking sites. She was skeptical at first.
“Her first reaction was, ‘No one is going to compete with Facebook or MySpace.’ The next thing, she’s working for us,” Sendo said.
My post, #20, is in fact not by a founder. I read TechCrunch regularly to learn about the latest start ups and am an avid user of Facebook. I think it’s great to see a new app that rewards users. And it is easy to use.
It will soon be blacklisted and facebook too by ISP’s: Such pyramids mean tons of spam emails.
actually, it’s not a pyramid scheme at all. I looked into this earlier today…and it seems pretty straight forward.
you add the app to ur facebook profile, and u get points for crap you already do.
you either sell the points, buy more, or redeem the ones you bought or earned for free stuff.
please tell me whats bad about that?