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By on August 16, 2010

Money Can’t Buy Happiness, But it Can Buy Facebook Friends

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Being unpopular was never any fun, but these days we have social media sites to rub it in. Are spammers the only people following you on Twitter? Is Tom is your only MySpace friend? Is your mom the only person giving you the thumbs up on Facebook. Well, fret no more because now, thanks to uSocial.net, you can buy all the friends you need for the low, low price of $197.

Sounds like a Saturday Night Live parody commercial, but it’s all true. uSocial.net is a marketing company that sells blocks of Facebook fans. They charge $197 for 1,000 fans and they guarantee that they’ll be targeted fans who will never desert you. Pretty sweet deal for those who can’t get a date on their own, don’t you think? Apparently, quite a few people think so and they aren’t just companies looking to boost numbers.

“Very soon after launching, we found there were a significant number of regular people buying friends on Facebook who didn’t seem to be doing this for any real purpose,” said uSocial.net’s CEO, Leon Hill.

“Rather surprisingly to us, we soon found a large portion of these people were in a situation where they were simply lonely online and wanted more people to talk to,” Hill continued. “In short, they were literally buying friends so they had someone with similar interests to make an emotional connection with online.”

In a recent press release, Hill goes on to say that a few of the buyers have been soldiers who just wanted a slice of normal in their lives. Hill calls it “sweet.” I call it sad, or worse. It’s like some form of friendship prostitution.

Makes you wonder what other marketing services individuals might be taking advantage of. Buying email lists to use for their Christmas card mailings (surely at least a few people will reciprocate even if they don’t know you), maybe hire a copywriter to write better pick-up lines. For that matter, why not get an advertising company to develop an image campaign so you can hook the girl of your dreams.

It’s a tough economy and even marketing companies can’t afford to turn down business, even if the guy is looking for a focus group to stand in as guests for his next birthday party.

Source: uSocial.net


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8 comments on “Money Can’t Buy Happiness, But it Can Buy Facebook Friends”

  1. Josh Says:

    August 16th, 2010 at 12:36 pm

    Buy friends. Now with more snake oil.

    What a scam.

  2. Ann Williams Says:

    August 16th, 2010 at 2:21 pm

    That’s funny and pathetic all at once. It sort of reminds me of the list mongering that went on years ago when everyone was doing the multi level stuff. Oh yeah, they’ll be your friends! Only $149 for 100,000 best friends. Who were all starving third world folks who signed up on a public computer with a hotmail email address and got $5 a month for being on 20 different lists. Pre Nigerian Bank days.

    Good article! We are amused.

  3. Mixx Buzzers Says:

    August 16th, 2010 at 8:18 pm

    There are several websites now which sells Facebook friends in different categories. I think the most priced one is the PVA account which costs about $5.00 per account. This kind of business now exists because of the truth that Facebook is a good place for Internet Marketing.

  4. shirley Says:

    August 17th, 2010 at 10:48 am

    Thanks for the interesting post.

  5. harly Says:

    August 17th, 2010 at 11:52 am

    oh its very funny and it is very interesting.yes you are right we can’t buy happiness with money but get the friends its very funny.

  6. Affiliates Marketing Says:

    August 22nd, 2010 at 7:20 am

    These smart super affiliate “snipers” have less sites that make MUCH MORE money and are much easier and cost efficient to manage. They are in the trenches making the BIG BUCKS and could care less about writing a affiliate ebook to tell you how they do it. The super affiliate handbook providing online affiliate marketing.

  7. Rick Says:

    August 30th, 2010 at 4:01 am

    I personally feel they overcharge for their services. They don’t have any overhead and most likely outsource all their work to India for half the cost. There are better(and cheaper) sites out there that do the same exact thing. I while back I used a company called WantFans.com, honestly I couldn’t for more. They provided the same EXACT service for half the price.

    In todays day and age, social marketing is the way to go, so if you have the extra $$$, it is worth it : )

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