It was only a matter of time. Over two years after its virtual goods marketplace opened, Facebook has cast away its innocence and started to sell virtual gifts emblazoned with celebrity faces and paraphernalia. Leading the charge is worldwide music star Britney Spears, who now has six gifts prominently appearing in the marketplace.
Britney’s set of gifts was designed in collaboration with Susan Kare, the famed designer responsible for creating the icons on the original Macintosh, as well as many of Facebook’s other virtual gifts. The initial selection includes a schoolgirl outfit, a birthday cake, a multicolored balloon, and a classic shot of Britney’s performance with a boa constrictor. And in case you were worried that these digital masterpieces were somehow counterfeited, fear not: the press release we received says that they were all “signed by Spears herself”. Seriously.
Of course, these will sell like hotcakes to Britney’s legions of fans (she has over 2 million on Facebook alone). And they’ll also likely get a fair bit of use from mischievous young men who will send them to their friends and giggle incessantly. Either way, Britney and Facebook win: each gift costs $2 (most gifts cost half that), and you can be sure Britney is getting a piece of the action.
It’s only a matter of time before we see a bevy of other celebrities sporting their own sets of gifts. And in a way, it’s sort of sad — I’ve always enjoyed virtual gifts because they were charming, featuring things like cupcakes and penguins. Granted, there have certainly been some corporate sponsored gifts (someone gave me Coors Light bottlecap at some point), but even then they were usually hand drawn. The photographs of Britney just look out of place.
This is branding concept.Celebrities want to increase their brand value by selling their faces,styles etc.
uhg.
If someone would teach Britney to sing in between cartons of Marlboro’s she might really go places. Seriously, I’m lost as to why she is so popular. But hey if people are dumb enough to throw money at the wind like this then kudos to Facebook for cashing in.
Some celebrities are just whores anyway. They’ll promote any product, including themselves.
@Dennis – I thought you were talking about something *totally* different before I read that second sentence.
uh oh. facebook really is the new myspace. when are we going to start uploading profile pictures that sparkle?
It is myspaces grand plan.. they program the sparkle to give all facebook users a seizure and they will all come back to myspace..
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
compared to the comic on your site it is hilarious…
seriously who has a preview page for a blog.. who has a preview page for any site?
Touché my good man. “Who” indeed.
Although my comment was directed to Christine Lu saying “facebook really is the new myspace.” Your comment was rather witty.
Then forgive me… you know men and their swords.. hangs his head…. drunk commenting TC again…
Maybe I was secretly trying to get a date… white knight.. but that doesn’t work anymore does it… girls rescue us..:)
Nothing a nice preview page wont fix, old chap
nice. glad my snarky comment was able to bring connection to two strangers and a purpose to someone’s blog post. ^_^
Facebook: A Place For Branding
Wait what’s wrong the sparkling picture of me and my six cats that I have uploaded just about everywhere on the internet?
Can we chalk this up to just another stupid thing and pretend it’ll stop with the Spears girl and just block the dolts who send us that crap?
Facebook needs to whip up some Cheech and Chong virtual paraphernalia! They have almost 200k fans…
lol, a virtual bong hit?
I better see some Britney rack shots…sans Mental!
love the post title.
so, will you consider apparel line/perfume line/stores/restaurants whoring too?
ahhhh…. duh
welcome to mainstream…I’m actually surprised it took them this long.
Facebook really needs to sit down and think about its long-term strategy.
They’re constant tinkering round the edges with the UI, mucking about with the the right sidebar and navigation zones, shoe-horning in revenue raising tweeks, advertising content constantly changes it’s present style and yet more.
They have a good product, but they need some stability and (revenue) growth now – constant site owner orientated change is the enemy of good usability and, from their perspective, hungry traffic and cold hard cash.
Without doing things like this (actually selling something besides advertising) Facebook would run out of money.
I see no problem with celebs promoting themselves in this fashion, but I don’t like the fact that the are charging their fans to basically promote them.
And the issue is what?? Users have had the option to “buy” virtual gifts of many assortments since Facebook opened it’s site. The dummies that pay two dollars to attach a care bear to a happy birthday message are the one’s that we should be scrutinizing. Ol’ Brit is no rocket scientist, however, her attourneis are apparently looking out for her interest by cashing in on the idiots that find humor in sending their friends a picture of what happens when trailer trash has money.
In india most of the people are using orkut. Facebook has to improve its business in india too..
Let me get this straight: You pay $2 for the right to send an image to someone which might annoy them?
Yuck. Seriously, yuck.
This is Just Only Promotion Method. That are Used by Twitter. I Seen Many Fake Celebrities Accounts. But good Marketing Strategies…Find Some More Information on TECH Orangy
Virtual gift is really an amazing thing to send friends and other user. People really likes it and used in many times a day. Thanks for more info
New music business model No. 54: virtual gifts.
You do know, don’t you, that if this was being done by someone cool on Twitter, people would be talking about how creative an idea it is and what a great way it is to connect to fans and charge them for it.
Virtual gifts still boggle my minds. I am supposed to pay for this? I just don’t get it. Then again it’s like buying real estate in Second Life – and I don’t get that either. Paying real money for virtual gifts. $2 can still get me something real — like two songs for the iPod/iPhone.
Who the hell want to pay for something that useless
i already have trouble spending money on unphysical products like mp3 but this !!!
Where can I get my MG Sieglers and Michael Arringtons?
They need to introduce some Britney Spears gifts from the 2008 era, shaved head, attacking cars etc
i liked the title jason. we’re all gonna be whores soon. whatever happened to the facebook payments system? it is supposedly being tested with some apps for months now.
Let us watch the space and see if it will be popular like the Ipod.
Facebook actually makes it pretty simple to set up your own gifting type application, just upload images basically and you are up and running. It is now just left to creativity on what will be next
Well, if anybody was going to be the first celebrity to whore themselves out on Facebook, it would be Britney.