Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2011: the 700,000 registered users and the news items (5,000 accounts cancelled after Christmas for gaining weight, 30,000 “unattractive” users let in through an alleged virus) are 2011 events. The site’s situation today may be very different.
Continuing with internet business ideas, we can’t leave out BeautifulPeople.com, a social network exclusively for “beautiful” people. What sets this social network apart is that it can boast that all its users are physically attractive.
The registration process is based on a kind of “democracy”. It starts with a supposed algorithm that analyzes the facial features in the photos you upload and ends with a vote in which the other users decide whether the newcomer is “worthy” of joining based on their looks. If the users vote against, the person’s account is cancelled, simply for being “ugly”. Is it an original idea? Yes. Is it outrageous and appalling? Without a doubt, because they haven’t considered the harm it can do to the people who are rejected.
BeautifulPeople already has 700,000 registered users and has made the news several times. It made the news when, after Christmas, it cancelled the accounts of 5,000 users for putting on weight. And it’s in the news now because, as a result of an “alleged virus” (a version of events that has been questioned), 30,000 users who are physically unattractive, or far from the select “club’s” ideal of beauty, were allowed to register.
This network’s business model is profitable, since it’s based on advertising. It doesn’t have that many users, but they have enough self-absorption to make them potential customers for clothing brands and anything to do with keeping up with the latest trends.
We usually talk about the well-deserved successes of entrepreneurs, but in this case, if we had to draw up a list of the worst business ideas, BeautifulPeople would be a finalist, not least because it’s built on such blatant discrimination and doesn’t consider the emotional harm it can cause some users.
Let’s look for the positive side of this network: it wouldn’t be hard to compete with it. Someone could always come up with the idea of launching a social network exclusively for ugly people. The problem, of course, would be finding users proud to belong to it.
Further reading
- 9 social networks for professionals and specific niches
- Two millionaire business ideas made in Japan
- The Mark Pincus (FarmVille) case: a profitable business selling a product that doesn’t exist
- How to find business ideas
Featured image: Leonardo da Vinci, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
