Online activist group MoveOn.org is poised to announce a campaign targeting Facebook's "Beacon" advertisements, which post information about users' activity on partner sites (movie rentals, purchases from online retailers) onto their friends' News Feeds. According to MoveOn representatives, the organization considers this to be a "glaring violation of (Facebook's) users' privacy," and has launched a paid ad campaign on Facebook, a "protest group" on the social-networking site, and an online petition to encourage the company to allow users to opt into the program at their own volition.
"The bottom line," MoveOn spokesman Adam Green said in an interview with CNET News.com, "is that no Facebook user should have their private purchases online posted for the entire world to see without their explicit opted-in permission."
It's true that Beacon advertisements are limited to the news feeds of the people on a user's friends list, but Green said that doesn't make a difference. He cited Facebook user testimonials that ranged from members who said their entire Christmas lists had been published on their News Feeds (spoiling many a surprise in the process) to student activists who were concerned that sensitive purchases might show up and result in serious consequences--"If a college kid rents Brokeback Mountain and some homophobic person on his campus sees that, that could be a real problem," he explained.
Beacon does allow members to opt out. But, Green said, that isn't enough for MoveOn, which got its start as a left-leaning grassroots organization. "The opt-out is very well hidden," he said. "It basically pops up for a second and then goes away, and it's on the bottom of your screen when you're purchasing on a totally unrelated Web site, so you aren't even looking for it." He added that there's not a universal opt-out, so members have to repeat the process on each partner site. "Even if you see the opt-out and jump through the hoops of opting out once, that doesn't solve the problem."
Some retailers participating in Beacon say they're familiar with its potential pratfalls, but insist that it will ultimately be a positive development. "I think it's a new technology, and until people get used to it, it might surprise some," said Josh Mohrer, director of retail for BustedTees.com. "We have had a few instances where people were surprised, not necessarily angry, but surprised that their purchase showed up on their Facebook feed...I think when it becomes ubiquitous, which it most certainly will as Facebook things tend to be, that people will get used to it and see it as a good thing."
Mohrer said that he saw where the complaints were coming from. "I think Facebook probably needs to do a better job of warning people about it," he said. "What's bad is that people are probably going to blame the merchant and not Facebook."
Additionally, Mohrer admitted that he doesn't entirely disagree with the concerns of activists who have pointed out potential privacy issues with Beacon. "You should have an option to turn it on," Mohrer added, "not the other way around, especially around this time of year."
BustedTees, the Web site responsible for that "Prose before Hos" t-shirt that you wore to your English 101 final exam, has announced a Facebook Platform application that offers to split cash revenue with users willing to install it.
The application has soft-launched and is set to launch formally in a few days.
The model here is similar to traditional "affiliate programs" for advertising on Web sites and blogs--and indeed, it's essentially a "Facebookified" version of BustedTees' existing affiliate program. Pimp them on your Facebook profile, and you'll get a cut of the cash when it produces results. It's $5 per shirt, to be exact, and if you install the BustedTees widget by clicking on the profile of a friend who already has it, that friend will make $1 per shirt sold through your profile. You get paid either through checks in the mail or via Paypal.
I spoke with BustedTees representatives to see if there were any concerns about the app getting flagged as a pyramid scheme, which happened to online music start-up BurnLounge earlier this year. Apparently, the BustedTees application won't run into that problem because you only earn a commission from friends who've installed the app directly from your profile--"it only runs one level deep," retail director Josh Mohrer told me.
(While BustedTees likely won't have an issue with pyramid scheme allegations, expect talk of multi-level marketing to surface more as Facebook application developers divert their attention away from zombie attacks and food fights, and more towards, well, revenue.)
So you probably can't get rich off it, but the BustedTees Facebook app could presumably earn you some extra beer money if there are lots of people on your Facebook friends list who have a penchant for BustedTees' fare--which tends to be along the same lines of the we're-cool-kids-but-still-huge-dorks modus operandi of its sister site CollegeHumor. Both are part of the InterActiveCorp-owned Connected Ventures.
Among BustedTees' offerings are t-shirts printed with viral Web in-jokes (like the "Dramatic Chipmunk"), references to Frat Pack movies (like a logo for "Speaker City," a nod to the movie Old School) and early-'90s kiddie nostalgia (like "The Beets Killer Tofu Tour '96," which has now gotten that irritating song from Doug stuck in my head), and some more straightforward slogans, like "Jesus Hates the Yankees."
- Threadless is one of the most popular shirtmakers out there. It started out with user votes to pick out which shirts would go on sale, and have since moved on to independent designers. When shirts sell out, they're typically not for sale again unless the demand becomes great. They're also set to open a retail store in Chicago next month.
- Glarkware, a small Canadian shirt company, is based out of Toronto, Ontario, and has a fairly eccentric line of humor-related shirts. They've also got a line of T-shirts on the way for toddlers.
- Shirt.Woot. From the same bunch that does good ol' Woot.com and Wine.Woot.com, is Shirt.Woot.com--a one-shirt-per-day service that rolls out a new design every night at midnight Central time. Every shirt is always $10 with free shipping, along with the option to get it delivered in two days for another five bucks. While a good deal of the shirts are designed by professionals, the service also runs a weekly "derby" with user-generated designs. The most popular design goes on sale, and the designer gets a cut of the profits.
Dreaded Spam becomes T-shirts at SpamShirt.com.
- Bountee is a hybrid service that offers both professionally designed T-shirts and a build-it-yourself solution. Bountee features a variety of "Web 2.0" features like tagging, user ratings, and commenting. It's also got a really slick, easy-to-use design.
- Split The Atom is a U.K.-based T-shirt company that's pretty much exactly like Threadless, but with a smaller selection. It also takes user designs in return for a one-time cash prize.
- Design by Humans has a very small collection of shirts, but offers some pretty decent prize money for winning designers with a daily, weekly, and monthly design contest. Each designer also gets their own profile page for listing any background information and to showcase some of their other works.
- BustedTees and Defunker are two very different Net T-shirt services from the same company. Bustedtees is more about humor, while Defunker offers more designer solutions akin to Threadless. Both sites are really slick, but between the two, Defunker feels a bit snappier. There's also a pretty large price gap, with most Bustedtees topping out at around $16, and Defunker averaging in the high-$20s and mid-$30s.
- T-ShirtHell. There's a reason this site has a warning page and a hellish name. These shirts are the kind that will get you stares in public, and usually not for a good reason. Definitely not for the faint of heart, or workplace.
- The Cotton Factory doesn't actually make cotton, but they have a very solid selection of designer, and humor T-shirts. There's even a section of T-shirts less than 10 bucks. There's some real gems in this place, especially if you like "ninja" apparel. ... Read more
Internet commerce is becoming the new pastime for many in my generation. Generation Yers like to buy interesting T-shirts online, and there's no shortage of sites out there that are putting out an absurd amount of user-generated designs. Here's a list of more than 20 quality sites that put cotton, and inspiration, on your back.
Readymade:
These services sell shirts that are designed by users and professionals.- prev
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