Nick,

Not quite sure what to say to this. Almost everything you say here is false…people ARE making real money, the application DOES work exactly as described, and feedback has been spectacular to date.

This entire post is pretty much BS. Don’t take my word for it (or Nick’s for sure!). Go here and read what people are saying for yourself:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45829539290

And here (Nick even posted this link):

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=43000236800

Feel free to email me at ANY time: shawn@chattotext.com

Shawn Pringle
Co-Founder
Chat To Text, LLC

What idiots! Do they actually think they can get away with this?

Well, unfortunately it’s been more than 6 hours and it’s still up. It violates the TOS in multiple ways, including using “facebook” in an app url (minor compared to other things, I know).

Yes, they do think they’ll be getting away with this.

Sadly.

In other news, I’ve already gotten five invitations to use the program. I have politely pressed “ignore” each and every time.

I believe your condemnation of this application is premature, and also possibly based on incomplete information. A multi-level, direct selling approach to a product is PERFECTLY LEGAL, and it seems to me that this product set up is as well. As you refer others to become users of the product, you get a commission on everyone that purchases it. It is very simple. I have installed it and it works beautifully. I am sure that the two developers of this app have read all of the legalese in the Facebook requirements…

You seem to simply be one of the misguided folks that believe ALL multi=level format companies are illegal. A “Pyramid” IS illegal (the exchange of money for no goods/services)…but, a MULTI-LEVEL business structure as regulated by the FTC and taught in MANY business schools around the country, is ENTIRELY legal!

@Shawn, I’m sure that the system works in theory … the only problem is that this completely violates the terms of service. You aren’t allowed to incent users to invite their friends on the platform. In this system you are setting up nothing more than a pyramid scheme.

Is there anything I get for $6 aside from the potential to possibly make money if my other friends pay money?

@Laura, I understand the difference between MLM and a Pyramid scheme. I actually used to sell a phone service through an MLM program when I was 18. What’s the business that these guys are selling though? There isn’t one. It’s simply an application that provides users with an incentive to invite their friends: the incentive being cash.

If Facebook removed the incentive statement from their terms then technically this makes sense but as far as I know it’s still against the terms making this application a violation.

Nick…You said:
“What’s the business that these guys are selling though? There isn’t one.”

No, it is obvious that they are not selling a BUSINESS but a SERVICE…they are selling the service that allows a person who is sitting on their Facebook Page to communicate with their friend via Instant Message directly to that friend’s cell phone (a feature that is impossible with Facebook without this application and the technology that they have developed and paid for). So, you are not buying a business…you are purchasing a PRODUCT and sharing that product with others.

I’m certain that the Facebook Police will look at this long and hard, and I’m also pretty sure that the developers of the application have done so as well. Whether it violates FB’s terms of use will be seen shortly, because if it does you can be sure that they will shut them down. If they do NOT shut them down, then you owe Shawn (and the other guy who developed it) an apology!

I hope it works, and that it is not shut down, because I think it’s a WONDERFUL idea…must more practical than most of the other dumb applications out there (which I repeatedly ignore).

Sorry, Shawn, but it’s definitely a violation of Facebook’s TOS. I’ve blogged about it here:
http://TinyUrl.com/FBAppScam
@Nick great post.

I don’t think PayPal allows MLM Payouts. So how do they expect to get around PayPal FREEZING their account?

The ONLY issue here would be the TOS. This is no different than paying iphone, or any other provider, for an application. To be calling it a pyramid scheme is just plain naive. In a pyramid scheme (by definition) you get nothing of value back. Here, you get the very real and valuable use of the application and service it provides. This is like every other affiliate program, or legitimate network marketing company out there. You pay for using the service/application, and you are rewarded for referring others. Plain and simple.

Of course that does not resolve the TOS issue, but let’s get of the “pyramid scheme” horse here. Flinging that accusation in this situation is based on prejudice and mis-information.

@Jim, calling it a pyramid scheme is not naive. Is the focus on getting an amazing application or making money from inviting your friends? I’d argue that it’s the latter and all the comments on the application page would suggest the same thing.

I just want to know if anyone has gotten paid from it yet…

that’s my question.

I think the only reason that facebook would have a problem with it is because it’s taking money out of their pockets that they could be making.

DBK

It’s not just $6 one time. It’s $6 a month (to be exact, $5.99). And you got to remember how many text messages you will be receiving. If you have an unlimited plan, then go for it. I don’t. And I am not planning on paying $6 a month for anything.

Too many other ways to make money. I loathe MLM’s.

Anyond that is serious about an Internet business, should be cautious and skeptical, do your own independent diligent research. Just because many of us have been “burned ” once on mult level marketing schemes, those companies that want you to push the vitamins, pills, lotions, insurance, vacations, and the latest energy and health drinks,does not mean there are not legitmate companies on the Internet, with great products. Personally, I find the ones that offer Webucation to be amonth the best, from a standpoint of high profit and high cash flow. Far too often you waste your time calling hundreds of people to earn a few dollars of profits on hundreds of items. Simply does not leverage your time. Feel free to Google me anytime to learn more. And never let your skepticism get in the way of a legitmate business. RayLanfear

One of the problems with the internet is anyone can post anything on their blog and present themselves as an expert on a subject when that could be the farthest thing from reality.

Often you will find them presenting themselves as “white knights” acting to protect people from scams like Nick is presenting himself here.

Are there scams out there? Sure there are. Would I appreciate being warned away from a scam if it were relly a scam? Sure.

But look, when somone calls something a scam without having truely researched it first, then that is just irresponsible journalism that unnecesarily instigates fear where there’s no need for it and fuels rumor mills that cause misinformation. Such people are actully causing more trouble that the non-existent trouble they are posting to warn about.

Here are a couple of facts to consider:

I joined Chat to Text 2 days ago and found the whole application process and its daily operation to be fully integrated with my Facebook page. There is even a link to report Terms of Service abuse in the Chat to text system tray.

This thing is growing like crazy and plese understand it is good for Facebook. Do you honestly think that something on this scale could happen on the Facebook platform and not be shut down within hours if it wasn’t officially authorized?

Get a grip. Dave Morin, Facebook’s seniroplatform manager would have this thing shut down like white on rice if it was the work of a couple of hit and run scammers as
Nick suggests.

a for the question of does it violate the terms of service concerning advertising, it depends on what’s really going on.

If Chat to Text is an official Facebook approved joint venture then no, it doesn’t violate the TOS because it’s not “outside” advertising. Facebook is not going to bust themselves for coming up with a brilliant marketing concept.

Nick obviously does not understand the strategy behind this ingenious piece of viral marketing and how it fits into the context of what’s happening on the internet today.

Here’s a primer for you:

The internet (and online communities in particular) is like the new wild west or gold rush with various entities working to stake their territories in cyberspace. Getting and retaining loyal members who feel they are a part of “their” community is the aim and giving them incentives to stay is the game. It’s called a “sticky” proposition in the parlance.

This Chat to Text Deal is another of Facebook’s ways of becoming the world leader in online communities. MySpace in a sense was a fluke in that it organically grew on its own as part of our modern day zeitgeist but it alerted us to the fact that the trend of migration onto the internet and electronic communication was the wave of things to come.

Since MySpace showed us the trend and new entities like Facebook and Linked In etc. started to study what worked about it and what didn’t and then deliberately designed these features and benefits so that they could dominate market share for membership because membership means money to the owners because they can promise millions of pairs of member eyeballs to their advertisers. That’s how social networks are monetized. It’s a 21st century business model.

So in the greater scheme of things Chat to Text makes total sense and it’s a stroke of genius that will likely cause Facebook to leave all the other social networks eating their dust and be the dominant player in the industry.

It accomplishes 3 things:

1. It puts Twitter on notice that it has some real competition. Twitter has been running away with social networking growth numbers lately and Facebook has likely been measuring the attrition casused by the micro blogging explosion. If they are going to stay competitve they’d better be able to do what the competition is doing, and fast.

2. It causes Facebook members to stick by paying them (in a sense) to belong. Who’s leaving if there’s money on the table? Not me. Twitter is not paying me but Facebook is? That’s a no brainer. And it costs them virtually noting to do it because we the members are supplying the cash infusion.

3. This is the most brilliant enticement to draw brand new members into Facebok and getting new memebrs who stay is the name of the game.

As for the person who posted that it was not a one time fee of $6 but a monthly, what you failed to get was the fact that your second month and all successive months will be paid out of your earned commissions, not out of your pocket.

Please Nick, do the responsible thing and sufficently research what’s really happening before you go runing off at the pen and seeding suspicious speculation where there’s no need of it. With your connections I’m sure you can get to someone inside Facebook to get the real story.

It’s down, Nick. 9:42 PM. TOS Violation. Took longer than I thought.

Sorry to see app go I had to sign-up but for those that want a solution which work through PayPal for months go to EmailMakesMoney.com for The BBB Club. It offers real service and benefits and pays direct from PayPal with no violation of TOS.

BRING BACK CHATTO TEXT!!!
It did not leaglly violate any Facebook terms at all and they shut it down.
In these hard economic times this was a chance for everyone to make some extra money. And even though Facebook shut it down, ChatToText are still paying out all the commissions.

Well, Is it against Facebooks terms of service? Yes!

Is it an illegal pyramid scheme? No.

There is nothing illegal about a multi level marketign program like this, however Facebook probably won;t alloe it and Pyapal will soon cancel their account since they don.t deal with mlms.

Right on point David G. I like how these people defend Facebook with blind loyality. Ask Facebook to share some of the advertising revenue with the members that they used to get rich. This type of greed and blind following without the pay will soon disappear. The most likely reason it was shut down was because Facebook wasn’t getting it’s share of the profits. Facebook is in trouble and will soon be in big trouble. You heard it from me first.

This is playing out in a very interesting manner.

First of all my apologies to Nick and others. You were right and I was wrong about the TOS violation.

Chat to Text was so well done, without bugs (relatively speaking for a launch)and so fully integrated with Facebook that it appeared to be an offical FB released improvement.

I would have thought that if something this big were spreading through the FB network this quickly and it was not offically sanctioned that it would have been gone in hours rather than 5days.

As I stated in my first post the TOS policy applies to plain vanilla members not being able to use the platform to advertise to each other for free, not FB itself. They of course can use their platform to promote anything they want to.

As an interesting side note, CTT did indeed purchase some advertising from FB to promote the service. I saw a captured screen shot of the ad on another forum site so maybe they were not in violation of the TOS after all but that their initial asds resulted in a huge viral reaction.

FB probably never anticipated paid ads jumping outside the system and carrying on with a life of their own.

This one threw them for a loop.

So now that they’ve shut it down its got me thinking about the intelligence of the two guys who created it and what their strategy was/is.

Anyone who could create something so so functional and cool and plot a course to create such an awesome revenue stream could never be so dumb as to invest all that time and money to launch something this big into the FB platform without discussing with FB whether they would allow it.

No. They couldn’t possibly be that dumb… at least its hard to imagine that they could be.

So if they aren’t dumb or crazy it must be because they have a strategy to blast onto the scene with a nice bit of controversy to get the buzz and throw some cold water in the FB’s face tp make them see that this is something they need to pay attention to.

So getting shut down may be an intentional part of the plan to be taken seriously.

Had they gone in to FB with the idea and suggested that FB fund the development two undesireable thing might have happened.

1. Even if there was a non-disclosure agreement in place big corporations find technically legal ways to get around them all the time and the idea would have probably been stolen from them.

2. If they got the contract to do the development for FB they would have likely been paid far less than keeping control of their brainchild and negotiating a strong joint venture agreement.

So operating as pirates and breaching the sacred halls of FB these upstarts have demonstrated their programming accumen and thier business smarts to show FB what FB needs and still maintain a powerful negotiating position.

If FB wants to try to duplicate CTT on their own they are far away from being able to get a product up and running anytime soon.

And in the meantimie Twitter is running away with explosive growth numbers and are perhaps even stealing longtime FB’ers over to their micro blogging app.

You can see that the changes that FB has been making lately are all about trying to loook like and do what Twitter does.

But without the phone/pda app the changes are mostly just cosmetic.

Now FB may be a big player but by no means do they have a lock on being the top brand in social networking. Far from it.

We are still in the wild wild west gold rush period of seeing who will emerge the dominant brand is settling cyberspace.

CTT solves several major challenges for FB and could propel them so far out in front of their competitors that no one will ever hope to catch or pass them.

1. If they can do what Twitter does AND financially enrich their members lives at the same time, Twitter will either have to find a way to do the same or go down in cyber-history like so many other so called major players have done eg. Netscape, or Napster.

CCT as it is now could slingshot them so far out front that no one would ever catch up. And putting some FB sized dollars into dot releases with all kinds of new bells and whistles that could run rings around Twitter would seal the deal.

2. In the constantly shifting and changing environment of new social networks starting and people moving around tryhig to find the one that they like best and feels like home to them, the propositon of being able to be paid for belonging and being paid so well they could even quit their jobs or replace the income from a job they’ve recently lost in this economic downturn, well that’s just an astounding sticky.

FB could be the hero of the times to their members and take a place in the history books tat shows how the new 21st century internet models saved the day for the middle class in a crumbling economy.

3. Having this “The Onely Social Netowrk that prospers you to be a member” value propostion will brring so may new members into the fold it will stagger the imagination. And of course many of these new members will be jumping ship from Myspace adn Linked In and Twitter etc.

So it allows FB to triumph over the competition and that as we all know is the name of the game in american business.

4. Now if FB can get this last one it will be the thing that could launch them beyond the moon.

FB’s TOS are designed to protect their relationship with their advertising clients. We can’t be having the members using the platform for free to advertise to each other becasue that would be perceived as being competition to paying clients.

Here’s what FB has to get to make the lock come off:

It’s not competiton but a win, win situation for everyone. Think about it, if the FB member base is financially empowered via CTT’s business model then they will have lots more money to buy things from the paid advertisers.

This is a newsworthy story now and I hope that some of the bigger tech bloggers pick it up and get it buzzing out there in order to apply a bit of leverage to FB’s honchos.

This could be a cause celebre’ for all the people in the middle class to ahve a way to protect themselves agains the econnomic downturn that is going to get way worse before it gets better no matter what the talking heads of gvt. are telling us.

Facebook could emerge a huge hero in all of this if they can see the vision I’ve laid out here.

But its not going to happen in the context of an argument between teh FB corporate policy wonks and the CTT programmers. That story will die out in a matter of days.

But if we get the David and Goliath buzz out there and keep the story alive and going FB will be forced to re-evaluate their position and come around.

It’s not exactly “shaming” them into changing but you know what I mean. If they are in the news and the techno savvy community rallies around the two maverick programmers that have the balls brassy enough to poke the FB corporate hive, now that’s where the power is.

I urge everyone here to start spreading this story far and wide and if you k now any big time bloggers who have clout please try to get them on board and squawking.

CTT is the little engine that could. FB corporate structure is the sttep hill. The power of the common people using the internet to virally share information is the steam in the engine that could get the train over the hill.

Let’s DIGG in and Delicious it and Technorati it and email blast it and blog it and youtube it etc. until it’s a real news story.

Maybe even boycott Facebook and encourage all our freinds to do the same. Let’s overwhelm the FB phone line and email severs.

The point is until the giant FB feels some pain or at least some effect they have no reason to change their policy por even listeto the feedback of the members. We have to show them that in the modern age the people now have the power to shape the future and are not content to just be considered “more eyeballs” to sell to advertisers.

Power to the people and al hail the CTT programmers-
Shawn Pringle adn bhis partner whos name I never did get.

By the way CTT has put up an info site to follow the play by play at: http://www.chattotext.com/

Wow Dave, you like to talk a lot. I scrolled down…you got a little long winded after about the 3rd paragraph. I’m sure I didn’t miss much.

Hate to burst your bubble, but chat to text will be back on in a couple of days as they did nothing wrong.

If you don’t like the idea of using it, just ignore it. but I have made real money on commisions with this compared to a lot of crap out there.

I love all the comments! I have built a multi million dollar marketing company online within one year of not even knowing what i’m doing to huge cash and not everyone wants to or can do that, so for everyone else wanting to get rich quick (which is the only way in the new mellenium!)try chat to text cause you can loose $6 buck or gain thousands depending on how hard you work it! You pay for a service and in return the company pays you for finding them customers/business partners! Nothing wrong with that, incase you all forgot thats what franchising is! Everyone else can sit on the sidelines and watch you make money or atleast loose $6 try to achive your dreams because some of you still have those and the rest are probably sheep just following the other broke people of the world not willing to try anything!

enjoyed reading this. what’s with all the Haters of MLM? I’ve done enough of it to know it’s not for me, but it’s not BAD. once it’s legal and you offer a good product or service and treat all your prospects with respect as you go through the process…..

actually checked out this blog cos I had incompletely signed up for chat-to-text. When I saw their video I presumed it was FACEBOOK AUTHORIZED and I figured wow! people will join facebook just to make money! and their figures will sky rocket.

On reflection I think it’s not a good idea to have a business incentive for joining facebook purely because the culture of the social community would change so much if there was a sudden influx of types whose intention was not purely social/casual or friendly networking with a view to casual and friendly business……

if you change the culture, the members who make it what it is might leave.

Facebook has a right to decide what it wants to become.

lots of love to everybody

i came across another scam website that is abusing facebook to lure people in:

http://businessclix.blogspot.com/2009/03/possible-scam-using-facebook-to-lure.html

Another `get rich quick` scheme. The world`s getting taken over by millionaires. lol

So what now? Now that we all know it’s not a scam, where are the posts? Don’t you feel stupid for jumping to conclusions?