Newsletter Sign-Up

Receive the latest technology news and information.

Would you cut off 10 Facebook friends for a Whopper?

Burger King offers application that rewards Facebook users for deleting online friends

By Sharon Gaudin

January 8, 2009 12:00 PM ET

Comments

Active Comments

Brian says: I would cut my entire Facebook for a Whopper, then I would sign up again and do the same all...

Read the rest | Reply

Anonymous says: I said the same thing when reading the article. I think whoppers are made with unicorn meat, they are just...

Read the rest | Reply

All Comments (13) | Post New

Computerworld - Feeling a bit hungry?

Wondering exactly who some of these people are who you befriended on your Facebook page?

Well, oddly enough, that could be a good combination these days.

Burger King this week launched an application called the Whopper Sacrifice. Taking its name from the fast food company's well-known burger, the Whopper Sacrifice rewards Facebook users who delete 10 of their online friends with a coupon for a free Whopper burger. The application can be downloaded from either Facebook or from the Whopper Sacrifice site.

"What would you do for a free Whopper?" the site asks hungry visitors. "Now is the time to put your fair-weather Web friendships to the test. Install Whopper Sacrifice on your Facebook profile and we'll reward you with a free flame-broiled Whopper when you sacrifice 10 of your friends."

Burger King, which last year released the BK Polarizer widget that gauged people's political views, is trying to ride Facebook's popularity wave with its primary customers -- 18-to-34-year-olds who chow down on fast food burgers.

What better way to play with the notion of what really is an online friend than to judge their worth compared to ... a hamburger? And Burger King is showing no mercy, though some good humor, by having the application send a message to the deleted friend to tell him that this person valued a Whopper more than their friendship. The app also acts as a counter, reminding the user how many more friends need to be evicted before they get that free Whopper.

The news of Burger King's funky campaign comes just as Facebook announced that it has hit a milestone of 150 million users. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted in his blog yesterday that while the social networking site has 150 million users, nearly half of them use the network on a daily basis.

Read more about web 2.0 in Computerworld's Web 2.0 Knowledge Center.

Comment Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Jump to comments

Facebook

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER

EFD vs. HDD - What You Need to Know

Enterprise flash drives provide a new Tier 0 storage layer capable of delivering high I/O performance at a very low latency. Proper use of EFDs in an Oracle environment can deliver increased performance compared to fibre channel drives. Read the recommendations for identification of the best DB components for EFDs.

WHITE PAPER

Gartner Research Report: Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers, 2009

The market for products to improve the delivery of application software over networks remains dynamic and innovative. Vendors focused on solving enterprises' most-pressing application problems have become the top players.

WHITE PAPER

Eight Criteria for Server Load Balancing

Server load balancers are a simple yet highly effective means to scale an application environment while ensuring its availability. Today's solutions should also address application performance and security. Read about the top eight criteria you should consider when choosing a server load balancer and how Citrix NetScaler meets those requirements.

What People Are Saying

13 comments | Add new

See all comments (13) | Add new

White Papers & Webcasts

Virtualization and Web 2.0
In this era of Web 2.0, Web applications are absolutely mission critical to almost any organization. But these applications are giving IT managers...

Web 2.0, Social Media and the Dark Web - A Web Criminals Paradise?
In this discussion, learn about the challenges of protecting your users from the potentially unsafe content hidden in the "Dark Web".

Oracle Accelerate - Not Just Smart but Timely
Download Now!

Data in Action: Making the Planet Smarter
Register Now

Why BI is Ripe - Now! - For Businesses of Any Size
Download Now!

Hosted Security Services: Why it make budget and security sense in today's economy
Watch Now

How Midsize Businesses Are Using ERP To Gain Competitive Advantage in a Tough Economy
Download Now!

The Workday User Experience Video
Watch Workday's Creative Director, Scott Lietzke, discuss the business-centered design philosophy at Workday.

Rapid Implementation: The New Age of ERP
Download Now!

Business Process Framework Demo
Learn about Configurable Business Processes and Calculated Fields. Watch Now!

All White Papers | All Webcasts

Computerworld Reports

Computerworld Technology Briefing: More than Business Value

Computerworld Briefing: Staffing for Intelligence

8 Questions To Ask About Your Intrusion-Security Solution

All Computerworld Reports

Disaster Recovery & Cost Savings Zone
Thousands of customers world-wide have turned to virtualization solutions from Riverbed as a way to reduce costs.