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Twitter and Facebook users buying friends

Posted Jan 11th, 2010 at 12:54 PM and seen
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Social networking can be a lonely activity when your only Facebook friends are your mom, creepy cousin and a bunch of people from high school who never even looked your way back in the day. To remedy this sort of online unpopularity, some Twitter and Facebook users have forked over $200 to an Australian company for a block of 1,000 friends.

uSocial offers the buyable virtual friends to anyone willing to put up the money. The company’s CEO, 24-year-old Leon Hill, told The Sun: “Social networking sites can be cruel if you’re unloved – they show exactly how popular you are. People are buying pals so they have more mates to chat to, rather than sitting alone on their PCs.”

Facebook has already sent lawyers after uSocial to try and get the service shut down.

Would you buy friends to look more popular online?

Tune in to all the latest news about Facebook.

 Annie Colbert

Comments (6)

Jan 11, 2010
financiallysavv said...
So sad. When it comes to friends, quality, not quantity counts. The unloved would be wise to look for friends through real social networks (meetup groups, local clubs, etc.) than "buying" a list of name of people who's scruples are questionable at best.
Jan 11, 2010
geekbabel said...
I wonder if they are buy friends out of loneliness or as part of their business strategy. There are a lot of sites that allow you to buy Twitter followers for instance, solely for marketing purposes. Otherwise, I can't imagine that there would be a great market for this.
Jan 11, 2010
Twitter.com/LivingRichLee said...
Building relationships takes time. Maybe some don't feel they have enough of it to build their lists. I don't judge. However, their are major advantages to getting to know the people who follow you on Twitter & Facebook. You can learn a lot.

Lee
Twitter.com/LivingRichLee

Jan 12, 2010
Ben Atkin said...
Something similar happened when MySpace was the hottest social networking site. It's not really that different. One positive thing that might come out of this is more people realizing that there's a continuum between inorganic and organic growth. This will happen when people realize that the real difference is those who grow mainly on content and those who grow mainly on other tactics (whether using clever hacks or money).
Jan 12, 2010
EdCabellon said...
This is really sad. I guess I could see the short term benefits of "appearing" to be popular, but building a long-term, meaningful, and connected online community takes time and lots of Whuffie. I know its hard not to get caught up in numbers, particularly in business, but there are much better ways to spend that money (like hiring people who are connected to help build your brand!)

@EdCabellon

Jan 12, 2010
tjMcManus said...
On a more professional basis, Drew Carey has offered up to $1M to buy the Twitter name @Drew, IF the account has 1M followers by the magic date. In that case, the $ is going to the current owner of @Drew, who is battling cancer.

Look at all the apps that promise to get you more twitter followers. Same thing. The digital age of 'slavery' or at least indentured servitude: selling yourself and your friends for 20 cents each (at the fee given above). Both sad and weird, really.

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