It's way better than Super Poking by sending a beer.
Instead of “giving” a little cartoon beer on Facebook, or a steak dinner, to celebrate a friend's next big moment, a new online program lets you give a real drink or dinner.
Give Real is a site that allows people to buy credits for their friends online at givereal.com. Then the amount shows up on the recipient's credit or debit card, but can only be spent at a restaurant, club or bar—much more personal than writing “Happy birthday” on a Facebook wall.
So there's no gift card or coupon or anything; it's putting money on a person's debit or credit card. In fact, Give Real hopes to eventually replace gift cards, which may have expiration dates or be easily lost.
Finding its niche: The Facebook crowd is one that Give Real is targeting, by allowing users to install a Give Real application on their profiles. This way, users can see who else has registered for free with Give Real, and sending credits is easy.
“We believe that Give Real has the opportunity to prove how successful an e-commerce platform can be by social networks like Facebook,” said co-founder Adam Ludwig, 25. “So far Facebook has been a great, great source of traffic and a great platform to integrate with, and we plan to do a lot more with Facebook in the future.”
Ludwig said Facebook has given Give Real about half its business, and Give Real has more than 18,000 members who have created an account or installed the Facebook application. There are more than 500,000 eligible dining and drinking destinations across the country, and credits can be used to buy food for drinks.
Give Real suggests giving a credit of $10, but the minimum is only $1, with a $0.90 transaction fee on any gift.
Staying connected: One Give Real user, Mariko McDonagh, 24, has used the service to give more than 10 gifts and has also received credits herself. She said she likes that Give Real allows her to give her friends the freedom to choose their gifts.
“I don't necessarily want to force my friends to go, for example, to the Cheesecake Factory,” said McDonagh, of Los Angeles. “I think that's what's really great about it, because you can sort of virtually take them out for a drink to a place they would have gone anyway.”
That idea is part of what spurred Give Real, a company started by Princeton graduates and former dorm roommates Ludwig and co-founder Patrick Ledbetter.
The friends chose to set up the company via Facebook and a Web site because, Ludwig said, getting establishments across the country to participate with coupon codes or gift cards, etc., would be nearly impossible.
“We thought long and hard about this particular logistical problem and realized we could set up a gift-giving platform that didn't require any opt-in from those merchants at all,” he said, “but instead leveraged data that all the credit cards store on the back-end about each merchant.”
Now the company has grown to a team of 10, all based on friendships—the one between Ludwig and Ledbetter, and the ones Give Real helps maintain and re-kindle.
“We definitely have very impassioned discussions,” Ledbetter, 24, said. “One of the benefits of us being long-time friends is we don't have to walk around on eggshells.”
And as McDonagh said: “It's a really good way to keep that relationship real. And if you give someone a present, they're obviously going to call you or send you an e-mail and say thanks and re-connect with you.”
