The Social

Announcing a new way to get your friends drunk: GiveReal.com, a Facebook application (and standalone Web site) that just emerged out of private beta. It's hoping to pioneer what the founders call "social e-commerce" by letting people send virtual drinks to each other that can be translated to a real-life libation.

The concept is, in theory, very similar to start-ups like buyyourfriendadrink.com. But services like that are only compatible with participating bars, and Give Real has found a workaround that will make its gifting service compatible with any bar that accepts credit cards. You opt to send a drink to a friend, your credit card gets charged, your friend chooses to accept the payment, and his or her credit card will be credited for that amount of cash when a purchase at an establishment considered a bar, restaurant, or cafe is made.

If the Facebook app is used, activity shows up in members' news feeds.

Drinks run the gamut from "Draft Beer" to "Pinot Noir" to "Purple Hooter Shooter" (what's that?) and there's no fixed price. So, depending on your generosity and wallet size, you can offer up anywhere from $1 to $99. If your recipient doesn't accept the purchase, you'll get your money back 12 months later.

On one hand, it is a very cute spin on the virtual-gifting trend that can be used to settle bets from afar ("I'll owe you a beer if...") or embarrass your friends by having an apple martini show up in a box on their Facebook profile. On the other hand, you're really just transferring a dollar amount to your friends' credit cards that's eligible for any purchase at an establishment classified by the four major credit card companies (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover) as a "bar, restaurant, or cafe."

So your friend could be using the $8 for that pina colada and spending it on cheese fries instead. But as they say around the holidays, it's the thought that counts.

Payments via Facebook
What's more interesting is that Give Real created its own payment platform to handle the transactions. Facebook has famously had a transaction system in development, something that may or may not have been delayed with the departure of product manager Ben Ling. I spoke to one of Give Real's founders, and he said that the introduction of a Facebook payment system would make it a lot easier for Give Real. But, at this point, they seem to have figured it out on their own, and say they've figured out the tough parts--fraud prevention and security.

The company aims to make a profit by charging a small transaction fee to each buyer and by doing branded campaigns whereby you can "buy" your friends a sponsored variety of drink (say, Corona or Jim Beam). The first of these partnerships should be announced within the month.

Give Real has been funded by Battery Ventures and Hillcrest Management, as well as angel investors Brian O'Kelley (co-founder of Right Media) and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Facebook junkies may know that he's the co-founder who hasn't exactly been on stellar legal terms with CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But he still has a big stake in the company, and undoubtedly wants to see the platform keep up its momentum.

A source with knowledge of the situation said that the funding was in the low seven figures. In these economic conditions, I'll drink to that.

Now this is kind of cool. Chris Mohney, editor of the Gawker Media travel blog Gridskipper, has compiled a guide to "New York blogger bars," a list of watering holes where members of the digital press have been known to go and blow their meager salaries on booze.

Like the blog's earlier guide to "Nerdy New York," it's fairly accurate. I've been to the majority of establishments on the list, and typically each visit was in the company of other bloggers and new-media journalists. (Believe it or not, I do hang out with non-bloggers sometimes.) But if you're an eager visitor expecting to run into the bloggers whose snark you subsist on daily, or a not-so-eager visitor hoping to avoid obnoxious writers at all costs, Gridskipper's guide won't necessarily help you much. You're not guaranteed to run into bloggers at any of these bars, nor are you guaranteed to not run into them elsewhere. Mohney's list really might as well be called "preferred bars of the Gawker-Gothamist-Curbed crowd," because as an older New York Observer article points out, that was New York's blogger scene not so long ago.

(And these are bloggers we're talking about. Of course they like to navel-gaze.)

Not suprisingly, most bars on the list are clustered around the Lower East Side zone that local blogs have dubbed "Hell Square," which is not only filled with cheap bars (by New York standards) for writers on a budget, but is also within staggering distance of SoHo, where a sizable number of New York's new media companies are based--including Gawker Media, Gothamist, and Curbed.

But over the past few years, as digital media has matured, there are a whole lot more bloggers to be found and the blogger culture in New York is consequently much more diverse. The most glaring problem I found with Mohney's list is that only one Brooklyn bar, the digital-art space Galapagos, made the list; Brooklyn is practically crawling with bloggers (they even have their own Meetup!) and I certainly hope they don't all feel forced to cross over to Manhattan to find beer.

And meanwhile, blogger culture has expanded from its SoHo-LES roots, and especially on cold days, cranky writers will want happy hour to be closer to the workplace. CNET's New York office is located in the Flatiron District, as are some start-ups like the digital-business blog Silicon Alley Insider. Not to mention the fact that most of the city's newspapers and magazines now employ bloggers, too, and the majority of those companies are headquartered a decent distance from the Lower East Side.

Mohney even admits his forgivable short-sightedness. "This list is neither comprehensive nor fair," he wrote, "as bloggers will drink most anywhere really."

But here's one that really should've made the cut: the distinctively named East Village faux-monastery called Burp Castle, a perpetual bar of choice for local video bloggers. That is, however, a very different social set. (New York is all complicated like that.)