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UNDER THE SUN |
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Your Photos
Could Be Product Placements
By Helen A.S. Popkin, msnbc.com
One day soon, our society will be ruled by
an all-intrusive advertising technique in
which individuals are paid to walk around
24/7 holding a product next to their
wide-smiling faces.
This was just one of the uncanny
predications a well-read, pot-smoking
hippie, conspiracy-freak friend predicted
way back in the early ‘90s. And when it came
to pass, my paranoid pal assured, he’d be
safely off the grid, well hidden in the rain
forests of Costa Rica where Madison Avenue —
or the InterWebs — would never find him.
This same friend also maintains that Nazis
invented aspartame. I don’t know about that,
but more than 15 years later, even though
that friend is still living in the Pepsi
commercial that is now Williamsburg,
Brooklyn (and not Costa Rica), and just this
year joined Facebook, I’m more than a little
freaked out that his personal-advertising
premonition may be happening — especially if
one hot new Internet startup, Udorse,
becomes a success.
Describing itself as a “visual endorsement
engine,” Udorse launched its beta-testing
version at September’s TechCrunch50, a
startup conference held by the technology
blog. But even before that auspicious debut,
the startup had received $500,000 in backing
from Founders Fund, the same company that
bankrolled Facebook.
What does Udorse do? It makes all those
hundreds of lazy, freeloading photos you’ve
been uploading to Facebook, Flickr, eBlogger,
whatever, finally earn their keep!
OK. Anthropomorphizing your digital trail
aside, the Udorse platform lets “you
endorse” the objects or locations in your
online photos by tagging them with your
comments and links to the products’ Web
site. You also receive a nominal percentage
of revenue for each friend who clicks on
tags that belong to Udorse partners. (The
two big names so far are Armani Exchange and
American Apparel, as well as 15 or so
smaller retailers and restaurants.)
“The whole idea is about empowering
companies or brands you’re passionate
about,” Udorse founder and CEO Geoffrey
Lewis said in a telephone interview chock
full of public-relations speak. In other
words, you’re not going to get rich. While
Udorse is still in its testing phase with a
couple thousand invited users, Lewis
predicts that once the tool launches to the
public this holiday season, even the
shoppiest Udorser can only expect to make
maybe $5 to $10 monthly. (P.S. You can also
choose to donate that money to your favorite
charity.)
So why bother? I mean, you’ve got “Mafia
Wars” to fight and imaginary petting zoos to
maintain, right?
Well, there is the outside chance, according
to Lewis, that if your taste-maker kung fu
is good, you just might have an outside
chance — possibly, maybe — to land an
endorsement deal with your favorite company
(and you don’t even have to shoot
steroids!).
Aside from that, there’s a “natural
endorsement” (there’s that PR speak I
mentioned) to every photo people choose to
share with others online, says Lewis, who
incidentally is a former Procter & Gamble
brand manager, who also did that hedge fund
thing pre-Udorse.
Be it clothing, restaurant, bar, concert,
gadget, sneaker, vacation spot or snowboard,
Lewis says, the things you’re posing with
are things you want other people to know
about. “Brands are shorthand for what people
want to say about themselves, but don’t know
how to articulate it.”
So, essentially, if this thing works, it’s
because Udorse successfully tapped into our
ever expanding
too-much-information-me-me-me-enough-about-me-what-do-you-think-of-me-and-also-what-do-you-think-of-this-random-crap-I-bought
culture already supported by Facebook and
reality television.
Creeped out? Yeah, so was Zappos CEO Tony
Hsieh, a TechCrunch50 panelist who found the
idea of his friends buying the same outfits
“a little weird.”
My BFF Ree Hines felt the same way.
“Remember back in the olden days when you’d
buy something really cool and you didn’t
want anyone else to have it because it meant
‘I’m cooler than you?’ ” she said, wistfully
citing an acquaintance who still makes up
fake names for her Mac eye shadows when
asked because she doesn’t want to share.
Yeah, I guess I could rant about our gross
self-obsessed consumer culture like I’m wont
to do, but frankly we’re bombarded with this
stuff. At least Udorse is voluntary. It’s
not like your wife is going to pop up in a
“Singles in Your Area” ad on your profile.
(Yeah, you heard me, Facebook.)
What’s more, Udorse cuts out the middle man.
Say your BFF sends you a Gmail about Mac eye
shadow. Now you’ve got, like, 10 Mac eye
shadow ads on your screen, courtesy of the
creepy Google ‘bot that reads your e-mail.
And not a one of them may link to the exact
product your BFF is trying to hook you up
with! Not so with Udorse … allegedly. |
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