If you were to built a base of friends on a social network you would have to go to a marketing agency that specializes in social networks. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of them. They would probably put together a campaign for you and depending on the size could range from 500-3,000 dollars.

I don’t know how to monetize friends and I think others don’t know either. That’s why this story is so fascinating to so many people.

*I mean controversial

bleu

1) Using bots to create “bot” friends only makes you look popular. I wonder how many fake “bot-driven” users you need to have, to attract real users. Obviously it depends on the network. YouTube would be harder to “game” at this point than Twitter would be, I’d think. But I’d love to see the “add curve” of friends (real vs. bot).

2) How much is a friend worth? I think I saw your comment on TechCrunch Sarah, that you put it at $1. (Aw, Sarah, I thought I was worth more than that to ya!) I guess some friends are worth more than others, too.

3) How do you monetize friends? How are other people doing it?

4) How much do some of these friends-gaming sites cost that were mentioned on the video? I don’t want 1000 FAKE bot-friends. Say I want 1000 real followers; how much do I need to pay to build that base?

But yeah, the whole concept of a “market” for friend collections is fascinating. Don’t go selling me off, Sarah.

And the same can be done for MySpace or Facebook, just cancel the friend or follower link.

I think the damage would be done with the seller and his or hers reputation rather than any issue with privacy of the follower. The only annoyance is receiving some initial spam or uninteresting message from the new owner.

Am I missing something? Maybe it was a slow internet day, and people wanted to complain about something.