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New Service Asks You To Sell Things to Your Facebook Friends

by Terrence O'Brien on March 13, 2008 at 06:52 PM

Market Lodge Lets You Sell Things to Your Facebook Friends
Companies have been trying to figure out ways to generate revenue from social networks, though so far, they have had a tough time of it. Even Google and News Corp. are struggling with monetizing sites like MySpace.

A company called bSocial Media is trying a new approach: Don't advertise, get people to recommend products directly to others in their social networks. A previous version of their strategy involved the now reviled Beacon program at Facebook that tracked users' surfing and purchasing habits. Following a rebellion against Beacon by users, bSocial was forced to go back to the drawing board.

What they came up with is Market Lodge, a Facebook application that lets users create custom stores similar to Amazon's Associate Program. Facebookers can earn a 10 percent commission on anything sold through their Market Lodge.

Market Lodge currently has a stable of 1,200 products from over 50 retailers, though the vast majority of those products are world-music CDs and Yoga DVDs.

We have to guess that Market Lodge will fail to spark some revenue generating revolution on the social network. People are usually unwilling to openly shill for products to their friends, especially when the products are the sort of thing sold at 3 A.M. on basic cable. To make matters worse, after an hour of trying to use the new Facebook application, we were unable to even get a Market Lodge Store successfully created.

From USA Today

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Tags: facebook, market lodge, MarketLodge, social

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