Wal-Mart Ghost is actually very scary
Ever since I first encountered the notion of a “virtual gift” - as implemented on Facebook or Livejournal, for example - I have marveled at the sheer balls it must take to charge real money for little graphics on social network profiles. In terms of sheer breathtaking absurdity, I think gifts must rank up there with ringtones, though of course they aren’t so profitable. (Yet.)
But somehow it’s even more astonishing to me that people seem happy to give and receive free gifts which are actually advertisements. They’ve so internalized the notion that adding a little picture of a cupcake or a puppy to someone’s profile is a service which must be paid for that they will willingly present their friends with ads and consider it a privilege. I first noticed this when I saw Livejournal profiles littered with cans of Diet Pepsi Max, but what made me contemplate it this morning was logging in to Facebook and seeing that today’s new gift is a Wal-Mart Ghost. Surely it’s hard to look at that image and not find it repulsive, yet I wonder how many Facebook profiles will be sporting it tomorrow morning?
I also like that they make the gifts limited to certain numbers, so you have to get them while they’re hot. You don’t want to be the only kid on the block without cute corporate ads in your gift box, do you?
I couldn’t help but laugh my ass off when I saw this. LOL! Who the hell would put that on their site?
Are you sure they’re ads? What about the hearts and other shapes? I don’t notice any kind of corporate association with those. I do see the paid ads that appear in my Facebook news feed.
As for Wal-Mart. Yuck! They need to Wake Up. (fyi - I work along side this organization).
I don’t think the non-free gifts are ads (they’re just stupid). But the free ones I’ve seen have all been associated with a company, product, or movie.
That is terrifying. And depressing.
Just wait for the day when we start putting product and company titles into our names ala Idiocracy:
Judge Hank BMW
Dr. Lexus
Beef Supreme
Frito Pendejo
And my personal favorite - President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.
Kinda cynically humorous that today they have a nightmare before Christmas image “gift”.
As an aside, as of today the Wal-Mart Ghost is marked as “sold out.” Which means that 300,000 people gave Wal-Mart ads to their Facebook friends.
Wanna buy a ghost? http://www.waverlyfilms.com/ghost.html
The ghost was scary enough to convince me to delete my account.
Well I like the Grow-a-gifts, myself. Let’s face it. 90% of the stuff on Facebook is meme-based marketing — equivalent to the 20 hojillion or so bizarre chain-mails that your friends send to you to forward to someone else… and so forth. This is why I make a point of not forwarding my silly little “apps” to all the poor folk I know. It’s enough to make some funny money marketing plutocrat wet himself with delight, and I’m sure some do.