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Jan 16, 2009 03:05 PM | 6
Facebook is no longer friends with Burger King, which it charges improperly used the site to pump up biz by offering users a free Whopper sandwich if they dumped 10 of their pals on the social-networking site.
Facebook disabled the fast-food chain's "Whopper Sacrifice" app this week, saying that it violated the site's privacy policy by alerting users when they were de-friended. Under normal circumstances, de-friending is a quiet, anonymous act; Facebook doesn’t inform you if you've been dumped.
Facebook says it didn’t remove the Whopper Sacrifice from its site, but told developers to make it more discreet. "We encourage creativity from developers and companies using Facebook Platform, but we also must ensure that applications meet users' expectations," a Facebook spokesperson told the blog Inside Facebook.
Apparently, that defeated the app's purpose. "Ultimately, based on philosophical differences, we decided to conclude the campaign and chose to 'sacrifice' the application," Burger King spokeswoman Katie Boylan told the Los Angeles Times.
The Whopper Sacrifice, however, remains memorialized. "Facebook has disabled Whopper Sacrifice," the app's site now says, "after your love for the Whopper sandwich proved to be stronger than 233,906 friendships."
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6 Comments
Add CommentAre they still going to honor their commitment to give me a free whopper for sacrificing my friends to the whopper gods?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is science news why?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClearly this is an example of the natural synergy between food science & computer science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis should be on cnet
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy would Burger King care who my friends are? And why do they want me to dump them? I don't get it? Maybe they should spend more time creating commercials that are worth listening to than creating stupid apps like this! And I don't mean using that stupid "king" anymore. I can't stand him.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit's all part of the burger king thing about their burgers being the best and being worth more to you than your friends. it's actually pretty scientific (on the psychological level). they used a free service to get data about their burgers and the lengths people go to get them (especially for free). of course they need to factor in that you might drop non-friends and people that you wouldn't miss or that they would just re-add them as friends later on. if nothing else, just more free advertising time for them.
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