EXCLUSIVE:
If you liked the ALS Challenge, hold on to your ice bucket.
A new iOS app launches today that builds on influencer networks to create a platform for peer-to-peer social betting.
Appropriately called Challenged, it features dares launched by a brand working with one or more online celebrities with lots of followers, although any user can offer a challenge.
It does not require that the challenge be linked to a charity. But Social Bet CEO and cofounder Jason Neubauer told me he expects some will be, and the app implies this with its “pay it forward” tagline.
Right now, there’s an awkward process to donate money to a connected charity by clicking a link in the challenger’s profile to go to a website. Within six weeks, the San Francisco-based company expects to add ecommerce, as well as Android, mobile Web, and desktop Web versions.
In beta for the last three months, the app launches with several challenges from brands working with online celebs like Nash Grier, Lele Pons, and Cameron Dallas.
If you don’t know who they are, thousands of their fans do.
Walgreens, for instance, has issued a challenge for you to create a 12-second beauty tip and possibly win a line of makeup. Tell about your “most spontaneous trip,” and Hotel Tonight will choose some lucky traveller for $10,000 in credit. Demonstrate your best trick shot if you want a shot at winning $1000 in Game Time credit for tickets to sporting events in the U.S.
Only one charity is offered at launch. It’s called Fuck Cancer, founded by — yes — Justin Bieber’s manager’s wife, Yael Cohen Braun. The challenge is to say who you’re saying “fuck cancer” for.
Challenged’s business model calls for the brands to pay for their participation. Beyond that, Neubauer said his company wants to see what evolves before committing to other revenue streams.
He hopes the app will evolve beyond a trail of previous social challenge apps. An iOS app called Blend asks users to create “fun trends” and nominate friends to join in. Others include FightMe, Mettle, Klash, and Challenge Accepted.
Neubauer sees his leg up being the influencer network, whose base of zillions of follows gives Challenged’s challenges a built-in distribution.
Which is why 26 Mgmt, the celebrity and talent management firm, is among the investors who ponied up $1.2 million specifically to back this app. Social Bet had previously raised another $1.5 million, and released in January of last year a social wagering app called You Bet Me.
It remains to be seen if Challenged ever develops the “pay it forward” part of its identity and actually helps finance many charities. It is entirely possible it becomes simply another brand vehicle for the booming influencer marketer industry, evolving social challenges through an infinite stream of variations.
There is also the possibility that the evolution could get weird quickly, the challenge equivalent of the Jackass movies and countless over-the-top reality shows, but without the professional coaches.
Neubauer said the platform, designed for users aged 12 and above, scans for keywords to help his company weed out the obscene ones. (Apparently the word choice for Fuck Cancer gets a pass.) But we’ll see if there is a language parser comprehensive enough to weed out all the weirdnesses people are capable of.
VentureBeat’s VB Insight team is studying marketing and personalization…
Chime in here, and we’ll share the results.
This new social challenge app wants to take you beyond ice buckets
from VentureBeat » Social Media Companies | Social Network News | VentureBeat http://ift.tt/1KSWdu4
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