Facebook on Virtual Currency: It’s a Go!

Posted on 19 January 2012 by Patrick Curl

FarmVille
Image via Wikipedia

According to Techcrunch it appears that Facebook may be about to jump into the virtual currency offers game. This will allow users to purchase virtual currency credits in exchange for signing up for affiliate programs like Netflix. This is similar to the deals made popular by Offerpal, gWallet, and Super Rewards which give virtual currency in exchange for users filling out surveys, or agreeing to offers, mostly in games on Facebook like Farmville.

Facebook is partnering with a few different startups initially to launch its own currency, called 'Credits' to the millions of Facebook users. Facebook's credits system was launched a year ago, as a way to pay for virtual goods in social games. Facebook credits has most recently been integrated with Zynga's Farmville game.

Facebook hasn't given a set timeframe on when these offers will begin to be rolled out, or which startups the social networking giant is partnering with, but it might make Facebook credits the defacto currency in all social games on the social network.

Many are asking why Facebook would get into the offers arena, and the answer is that the virtual goods and currency markets are beginning to heat up with the growing popularity of social games on Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, and others. Virtual Currency alone is expected to become a $2 billion industry within the next few years, and with the games being played on Facebook's platform it only makes sense for Facebook to find a backway to monetize these games.

On the other side this also gives Facebook more control over the types of ads users are required to visit and take part in, in order to gain their virtual currency credits. From a legal perspective this could help them save-face in the event of another Scamville scandal, in which the virtual currency was being offered by some applications that were serving up spammy scammy lead-gen offers to users. Shortly after this mishap Facebook changed its policies and cracked down on scammy ads on Facebook, and app advertising.

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