Archive for the ‘Fashion’ Category
Fashion Facebook Fun
Monday, February 18th, 2008
First it was politics, then it was sports, now Facebook is teaming up to try and get some market shares in the fashion world. The boys, and girls, over at Facebook have partnered with Vouge.com to create a “How Fashionable Are You?” competition.
The competition is simple go to the London Fashion Show group, upload an image of you in the must have fashion of the season (leopard skin tights anyone) and see if you win. The winner gets a VIP trip to the London Fashion Show and I am sure a ton of free swag.
The thing that sparked my interest, no the fashion I wear the same from 10 years ago, was the partnership. Facebook is making a habit of partnering with companies that can expand its demographic and increase its market share. I enjoy seeing Facebook take an active role in finding new users for its service.
I think a good deal of start ups can take a page from Facebook. Instead of waiting for more users to discover Facebook, the Facebook team is finding new ways to incorporate users bases from other services. I would be interested in seeing if Facebook could make a go at the Nascar crowd and the Soccer (football) crowd.
I can just see teams of market researchers at Facebook pouring over marketing data from around the globe trying to figure out new ways to hunt down users. No matter what Facebook plans to do next you can be assured it will be a partnership with a product or service that has an undeserved user base in the Facebook world.
What would you like to see Facebook partner with next? What other venues or services do you think could benefit from partnering with Facebook? Let me know.
Can Facebook Increase Your Sales? Definitely.
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007I received an email this morning from BustedTees.com telling me about a new application that they just released called “T-Shirt Money Maker.” I have been extremely skeptical about making money via Facebook applications. That was until I saw yesterday’s data which suggested profiles are the number one source of application installs. These are installs that result from user clicks. The only way to place an ad in a profile at this point is through an application.
I would argue that an ad in the profile is going to be much more effective than Flyer ads. This isn’t backed by any sort of quantitative data though. While this would make for a great research paper, my hypothesis remains that it is in fact possible to sell things via profiles. While it may not be as profitable for the users that decide to add the application to their profile, the owner of the application who can aggregate all the user profiles has a significant promotional opportunity. The real key to any of these applications is going to be provide enough incentive to the users that have the application.
For BustedTees, I think they have provided users with enough incentive. The incentive is that they get to display entertaining images on their profile. Whether or not they sell any t-shirts, users will have entertaining content that is displayed on their profiles. This is the only reason that I think this application will have any chance of being successful. The Visual Bookself application and Flixter’s Movies application are the only applications that I’ve seen successfully leverage affiliate sales through the profile. This is because people want to show off their movies and books to their friends.
Soon enough a large number of people may be showing off their Busted T-Shirts if BustedTees has anything to say about it. I will follow-up with BustedTees in the coming months to see if their application is successful at generating sales. In regards to the application, it is extremely simple. First, you pick the t-shirts that you would like to display on your profile. Second, you enter in your information for how you would like to receive payment. You’re done! Now you can sit back and watch the money roll it. At a minimum you can have some pretty entertaining T-Shirts to show off on your profile. If you like entertaining t-shirts, check out the T-Shirt Money Maker application
T-Shirt Money Maker Home
T-Shirt Money Maker Settings Page
T-Shirt Money Maker Profile Display
Play Dress Up on Facebook
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007
Want an easy way to browse through brand name clothing, put together cool outfits and show them off on your profile? Brand me provides a fun and easy way to create your own custom outfits that you can show off to your friends. I spent hours playing dress up this afternoon. Well, not really, but I’m sure that would have been a lot of fun. As of now you can select from men and women’s clothing and can choose from H&M, Land’s End and Levi Strauss brands. This application will definitely be better once a wider selection of brands is provided. I had commented on this type of application previously when I was discussing possible ways of leveraging the Facebook platform. Why could this application have such a powerful impact? From the advertising standpoint it helps you and your friends to share a brand experience on Facebook. From a sales perspective, individuals could create theoretical outfits with their exact sizes and then friends and family can come through and purchase those outfits via an affiliate program. While this is a first shot at allowing users to show off their favorite brands, I think this is headed in the right direction. If you want to play dress up on Facebook, go check out the Brand Me application.
Share Your Goods With Polyvore
Friday, June 15th, 2007
Want to have a way to organize your outfits? The future of Facebook will include virtual shopping, and wishlists that are integrated with friends. Go view what clothes, DVDs, or books your friends like. Polyvore is simply a step in that direction. Browse any online store and add a clothing item to your Facebook virtual wardrobe. Mix and match clothes until you find that perfect outfit. While I personally will not be spending much time organizing my clothing, I’m sure that there are a lot of people that do (most likely girls). Although, if you want to send me an outfit that would make me look particularly dashing, feel free! I love to receive gifts. So if you want to go spend some time mixing and matching various outfits until they are of your liking, go grab Polyvore.
