Virtual gifts are fun, but for the most part they’re a novelty – not something I’d ever actually give to a good friend in honor of a birthday or accomplishment. Give Real, a new startup launching today in public beta, is looking to help friends send each other something a little more enjoyable. The site allows friends to send each other what amounts to a drink tab up to $99 from any restaurant or bar, using credits that can be tied to their credit cards (it also offers a Facebook app with similar functionality). In honor of the site’s launch, Give Real is handing out $5 drink credits to the first 500 TechCrunch readers to sign up here.
The gift giving process for Give Real is a bit complicated, perhaps to a fault. If I want to give my friend a $20 bar tab for his birthday, I first enter my credit card information into Give Real’s payment system, which immediately charges my account. My friend receives a notification alerting him that I’ve given him the gift, but in order to collect it he has to tie his own credit card to Give Real’s system. He can then use that credit card normally at a bar or restaurant, and Give Real will automatically credit his account for the purchase using the funds I gave him (you can view the site’s tutorial here). Once your friends already have cards in the system the process is much easier, but I question if my friends would readily enter their credit card numbers to redeem their gifts in the first place (then again, people will go through a lot for a free drink).
Another issue that may confuse users is that these funds can only be applied to purchases made in eligible restaurants and bars. Give Real uses the same financial service provider as Mint, allowing it to pull in a credit card’s purchase history and get a rough sense of where each transaction was made. Those transactions that qualify will be paid using any Give Real credits that are tied to the user’s account. Founder Adam Ludwig says that the database is comprehensive and covers most restaurants and bars in the United States (though it doesn’t yet include any abroad), and that any transactions that aren’t correctly applied can be corrected by contacting customer service.
So why go to all this trouble? Ludwig says that the purpose of the site is to encourage social activity – if you just want to send a friend money, you might as well send a gift card or money transfer. With Give Real, you ensure that your friend gets out of the house and has some fun. He’s right, but it seems like there must be an easier way to do this (it would help if Facebook would release its long-rumored micropayment system).
So basically it’s like PayPal but you can only use it at bars? Or essentially a very limited gift card where the receiver has to enter their credit card info. At first glance it doesn’t look very appealing but after checking out their site, I think it would appeal to a certain niche market.
Here’s to hoping their $.90 per transaction goes a long way.
If I’m understanding Give Real’s FAQ, it’s neither a gift card nor a direct cash transfer — it’s a rebate service, vaguely similar to rewardsnetwork.com. The recipient doesn’t really receive the money until AFTER they spend their own money at a bar.
That’s why the recipient has to register a credit card to receive the gift: Give Real is monitoring their credit card transactions to spot purchases that are eligible for rebates. Until the recipient goes out to eat or drink, the money presumably sits in Give Real’s bank, earning them interest.
(As I mentioned, RewardsNetwork.com does something similar, but only gives partial rebates and is funded by participating restaurants instead of users. Give Real is an old trick with a new funding source.)
Cool idea… I’m eager to see how it pans out. If there were a way for a friend to redeem the gift without having enter credit card information that would be great.
I signed up to the “GetThemIn” Facebook application where you can send individual drinks that are real. Surely a much simpler way of the same model?
This idea sucks
epic beerz. yay.
You mean they enable people to send money from any credit card account to any other credit card account?
That in itself could be useful…
But why tie it up with restaurant visits? I am puzzled…
Oh God! Thanks for this innovation, this is the best way I can buy drinks for my favorite readers and email subscribers. May be you are the luck to read about innovations at http://www.youtechno.info get a free drink.
http://www.youtechno.info
(linkback) Thrive or Fail? GiveReal.com – send a bar tab to your friend [VOTE] – http://www.thri...rfail.com/9b5b3
For those of you in the UK that want to send real drinks on Facebook, check out “Get Them In” at http://www.face...p?id=2371657729
Plus, there’s a video here showing how it works…
http://vimeo.com/2462996
Isn’nt this what a restaurant gift card is supposed to do but you can buy anything at the restaurant .
Also these sites do the same thing
http://www.buyy...k.com/home.php?
http://www.youg...om/ygb/home.jsf
http://valleywa...rink-299344.php
Bringing holiday cheer with holiday beer (or hard booze) sounds like a good idea to me. Hopefully the gift receiver’s are not reluctant to give up their credit cards numbers prior to indulging in a night out on the town at their favorite pub or bar. You have my vote.
horrible this idea…
I’m sorry- I’m a fan of startups and innovation, but this is just too complex… Make it simple please!
I ignore most of the dumb startups offering invites here, but free alcohol always gets my attention. Best startup ever!
But seriously, forcing the recipient to register their credit card is going to be a dealbreaker for a lot of users. Too many people are too paranoid about their credit card numbers to hand over the number for something this nonintuitive.
Face it, “This is free, just give me your credit card number” sounds exactly like the kind of scam that consumer advocates are always warning people NOT to fall for.
That’s the beauty of credit cards! Have you never given your cc # over the phone ? its a total secure deal for the cardholders . the only way money moves is with the approval of the cc company with the receiver known. … In other words , if you order something my shop and pay by cc, I don’t magically get the money from your card, I have to go to your cc company to get paid. And they know who I am (and where I live, if you know what I mean)
Love it! Yay!
Tried in the past and failed.
http://www.buyy...k.com/home.php?
Sorry, but this seems completely different. buyyourfriendadrink is very limited, you can only use it at their list of places. But, I think, GiveReal can be used at ANY restaurant , bar ,pub (basically any place that serves alcohol and accepts credit cards) ….Thats probably why it has to be so complex, but once your in the system, seems pretty simple and cool.. check it out
@Jason
If you read the post you would have noticed that this web app’s process of gift receiving is completely different than that of BuyYourFriendADrink. Since gift redemption is done at the receiver’s credit card level, establishment participation is NOT required. This is very contradictory to BuyYourFriendADrink’s establishment dependent gift reception model.
I think most people will get these notifications and promptly mark them as spam. “Someone wants to give you money, just give us your account info to receive it” is a line everyone’s heard before.
If they can build enough awareness around it to so people know that it’s legit it might have a chance.
But that’s what is so cool about this application – By going through Facebook, if I send my friend a drink from Give Real, they get it through Facebook and see that it is from my personal Facebook profile, so they know it’s me.
Kind of like how blogs use Facebook Connect to verify commenters (will get on that soon…).
The best part for me is being able to give my highschool friends drinks now that we’re all at different colleges and can’t celebrate birthdays in person. I like knowing that they will go out and get a drink on me. Plus I love how unlike other gift cards, there is no annoying physical card that can get lost, expire, or be only partially used.
When you sign up you’re asked not only for simple credit card information like card#, but for your online card management username and password. I’m ok with giving a simple card #/security code to be stored when I use a site but I’d rather NOT provide complete access to a credit card provider account management site. My Amex login provides access to at least 3 different cards, from corporate to personal. Yikes.
I don’t see how this is better than sending your friend a gift card/certificate for their favorite bar.
@jeff
Yea, these kids and their newfangled web 2.0.
That’s also why I don’t use email. Why would you send a message to your friend who will receive it instantaneously when, instead, you can buy stamps, paper, and an envelope, handwrite a message, and then drive to the post office so that you can send the letter which they will receive in at *most* a couple of days?
I looked it and somewhat agree with Jason, it’s pretty convoluted to get you a $20 gift card. A system similar to how you send unwanted NBA tix or an iTunes gift would be much better.
“Hey Sonny, here’s a $20 gift check to INK Eats & Drinks from Ben, print it and use it whenever you want! And don’t forget to tell him thx. OR return the favor and buy him something by clicking here!”
That would be much simpler.
Either way, I’ll blog this on my site too.
let’s pray for some snow in Tahoe and the recovery of my buddy Chi Cheng.
Good idea, but abit complicated for a beer. Maybe the simplicity of M-PESA as employed by safaricom kenya will be the ideal here. http://www.safaricom.co.ke A friend sends you some cash on your mobile, you walk to any pub of your choice, take what you want and transfer the cash to the moblie account of the pub owner. That easy!!!!!
I happen to have met the owner of this (not the person who created it, but the guy who bought the business and has the creator running it for him-i.e. an investor). He thinks highly of this idea (or he wouldn’t have spent the money to buy it), and I think he’s a straight shooter (he also bought a company I do business with daily).
I recently decided to try Give Real and sent a drink to a friend. When I learned that he had to not only give a credit card number (enough to make me nervous) but also provide his online username and password for his cc, I told him to have them cancel it, I’d send him a check.
Next time I talk to the investor/owner, I intend to let him know how unpopular I think this would be for most. I wouldn’t give them my log in information, so how could I expect my friends to do so?
Nice. I like this idea.