Jan 22, 2009 09:00 ET

FriendlyFavor Launches Technology to Enable Internet Users to More Efficiently Help Each Other

SEATTLE --(Business Wire)-- Jan 22, 2009 FriendlyFavor, a social media utility company dedicated to providing consumers a more effective way than email of managing everyday favors and requests online, today announced the launch of its flagship site and platform, available at www.friendlyfavor.com. An all-purpose request tool developed to complement rapidly growing social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, the FriendlyFavor platform enables Internet users to more efficiently leverage their trusted networks of friends, family, and colleagues for help with referrals, recommendations, advice and other favors or requests.

Whether asking for job referrals, recruiting friends to help move furniture, seeking personal recommendations on Web site developers, accountants or reliable babysitters, or requesting opinions on anything ranging from Hybrid vehicles to great places on the West Coast to hold family reunions, there are countless common favors and requests that develop in consumers’ lives every day. FriendlyFavor was engineered to eliminate the wasted time, hassle and confusion that can accompany sorting through cumbersome email strings by providing a one-stop site where users can easily manage everything associated with a favor or request, from the initial ask to a thank-you.

In addition to powering the www.friendlyfavor.com site, the FriendlyFavor platform is being optimized for use with Facebook Connect (enabling Facebook users to "connect" their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to offerings like FriendlyFavor), and other white-label uses, as its technology can be easily licensed and applied to corporate networking (and Intranet uses), online communities, alumni and non-profit groups, and numerous other applications.

“In these challenging times, people are looking more than ever to help each other, with referrals, services, recommendations, and advice among the millions of favor requests that develop in consumers’ lives every day,” said Scott Larson, FriendlyFavor President and co-founder. “Today’s launch of FriendlyFavor is an important milestone in our ongoing effort to provide Internet users with a much more efficient and effective way of managing favors and requests than is currently possible with email or other means online.”

In addition to enabling users to easily ask for, offer, and manage favors, the platform allows users to thank each other for fulfilling favors, through retail gifts, charitable contributions, and more.

The venture is funded by individual investors affiliated with many of the technology sector’s most successful companies, including Amazon.com, Microsoft, Google and others. With FriendlyFavor’s proprietary technology, Internet users can now:

• Ask for something -- create favor requests: Using the “Ask for Something” tab, users can reach out to their trusted contacts (“Peeps” as they’re called on FriendlyFavor) for a variety of requests, whether getting recommendations on great things to see and do in Santa Fe, asking to borrow a mountain bike, or getting trusted referrals to find job candidates with very specific skills, among scores of other possibilities. FriendlyFavor makes it easy to create a request and delivers the requests only to users’ trusted Peeps via an email notification. From that notification, users are transferred directly to www.friendlyfavor.com, where they can respond to favor requests, post related opinions and questions, manage and update replies, and more. For certain favors that require a high degree of trust, such as finding a reliable babysitter, FriendlyFavor’s ability to provide private postings only to selected networks of friends, family and colleagues is a key point of differentiation.
• Create contact lists without reinventing the wheel: Unlike traditional social networks, where users have to start from zero to build up their bases of contacts online, FriendlyFavor provides an easy-to-use contact wizard, enabling users to port and customize their established bases of Peeps from Gmail, Outlook, Plaxo, Yahoo, AOL, and others. In the coming weeks, users will be able to save customized contact lists. As an all-purpose request tool, Friendly Favor does not require its users to join a network.
• Offer something -- provide a favor or service: Whether users are looking to give away baseball tickets, offering use of a cabin for the weekend, or have a television (or other item) they would like to give away, users can click on “Offer Something” and simply follow FriendlyFavor’s automated step-by-step process to indicate what it is they are offering and to whom they would like to send their Favor.
• Manage favors and reply to others’ requests -- better than email: Email forces users to wade through strings of email in search of replies to a request or discussion threads that may have life-spans of weeks or even months. FriendlyFavor enables users to manage their requests from a single, easy-to-find location online, all at the “My Favors” tab at www.friendlyfavor.com. Here, users can check the status of their requests or offers, read or reply to responses, adjust or update the favor requests and more.
• Thank others: FriendlyFavor enables users to thank each other for fulfilling favors through several channels, including gift cards from leading retailers such as Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Nordstrom, REI, Starbucks, Target and others. For those who prefer not going the route of gift card, FriendlyFavor users can select “cash” or “good karma” amongst several other options. FriendlyFavor also offers “Swap Shop” as an option, enabling users to exchange goods or services (such as a landscaper who could offer to work on a professional masseuse’s yard in exchange for a massage), as well as “Let’s Discuss,” enabling users to discuss other reward or payment parameters.
• Make charitable contributions: In addition to retail gift cards and other options, FriendlyFavor users can opt to reward each other through charitable gift cards via TisBest (www.tisbest.org), the leading charity gift card provider that has established donation channels with hundreds of notable charities worldwide. Founded in 2007, TisBest’s mission is to increase support for U.S. charities by reallocating gift dollars normally spent on “stuff” to charitable organizations, and by growing the pool of Americans that participate in charitable giving.

“We developed FriendlyFavor to be as nimble and easy-to-integrate as possible, as there are scores of large and growing online communities with shared areas of interest that could benefit from our platform’s capabilities, whether users are accessing the site directly or through a white-label partner,” said John Patton, FriendlyFavor co-founder and Chief Strategist.

FriendlyFavor has been in development since the summer of 2007 and generates revenue from technology licensing, targeted online advertising, affiliate marketing, and sponsorships. The company anticipates adding additional features in the coming months, such as the ability to save and name custom contact lists, Open Social and mobile integration, the capacity to attach documents or files to a favor and more.

About FriendlyFavor

FriendlyFavor (www.friendlyfavor.com) is a free all-purpose request tool dedicated to providing consumers with a more effective way of managing everyday favors and requests online than is possible through email or other means. FriendlyFavor enables Internet users to more efficiently leverage their personal and professional networks for referrals, recommendations, advice and other favors–all at a single location and without the hassle and confusion that can accompany establishing, finding and managing extended email strings. The company has established relationships with a variety of online retailers and other entities, enabling FriendlyFavor users to thank each other with gifts or charitable donation on one another’s behalf. Founded in 2007, FriendlyFavor is funded by individual investors affiliated with many of the technology sector’s leading companies.

Pointer PR LLC
Mark S. Peterson, 206-390-0204
mark@pointerpr.com