As predicted, the ChatToText application was shut down after violating the terms of service for blatently incentivizing users to invite their friends. The application attracted just under 20,000 users before it was shut down and now many are wondering what’s going to happen with the $6 that each user paid to join the service? My suggestion for the founders is to take the money and run since a $120k payout on a Facebook application is pretty damn good.
The developers took the time to build a fairly robust product though so my guess is that they are going to try to take another stab at launching the application. Fortunately for them they get to start with $20,000 users. Will people really pay to use the application now that they can’t make money off of it anymore? I doubt it but I’m sure there will be a lot of unhappy people that had their money taken from them.
Were these developers successful? Most definitely! While the company clearly violated the terms of service and was eventually shut down, they generated a lot of revenue. Large applications that are successful at temporarily violating the platform terms of service have actually become one of the biggest problems plaguing the Facebook platform. I’ll save that discussion for another post though.
For the time being ChatToText is offline and it will probably take a couple days at a minimum before it comes back online. At the minimum, the company has generated a ton of buzz about their application. There’s also a chance that the developers walked away with a pretty nice payday. If every user paid $6 then the company generated around $120,000.
Did you use the application? Are you waiting to get your money back?
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Seems unlikely that every user paid $6 though. Seems unlikely to me that more than 5% of users paid $6 in fact.
Comment by David — February 3, 2009 @ 9:05 am
Sings go onnnnn… "take the money and run" – Steve Miller Band.
Too funny. I think they should be required to donate it to a good cause… specifically, one that doesn't utilize MLM or pyramid schemes.
Comment by Lisa Jeffries — February 3, 2009 @ 10:00 am
I was expecting that! I hope they will return the money to the customers!
Comment by Social Spin — February 3, 2009 @ 9:50 am
I liked the Business Model. Hope they get a REAL partnership agreement with some of these Social Networking Websites.
You’re going to see it again for sure. Either from Chat to Text directly from Sites Like Twitter,Myspace or Facebook. Mark my words doubters.
Like myself, I am sure you just wish it was you who was smart enough and resourceful enough to do it first.
Don’t hate. Paticipate.
Comment by Marv — February 6, 2009 @ 6:03 pm
Well! For a company that spend thousands into development, they did not do a good job reading FB terms or even realizing that PayPal does not allow MLM payments. So much for ignorance in Web 2.0
I'd give them another shot. Everyone deserves it. I wish them well.
Comment by Chris Desouza — February 23, 2009 @ 6:49 pm
Well, you should all have paid more attention to what was happening and stopped being so incestuous in your comment.
It's up and running and doing just fine now isn't it?
Comment by JRW — March 19, 2009 @ 9:46 am
yeah but I heard there's another company coming out in a few weeks that will payout double of what ChatToText is currently paying.
Comment by Joe — July 31, 2009 @ 9:00 pm
big ol' scam, how do folks fall prey to these blatant B.S.?
Comment by Raymond — July 16, 2011 @ 5:41 pm