Jacobization of Odnoklassniki

Surely Odnoklassniki.ru is one the best examples of success stories of how a social network must work online. For three years they have changed their interface several times, and every time including smth new. And they have gathered more than 30 million users!

However, one thing that kills me about Odnoklassniki is that they have become too much commercialized. In order to close your profile from non-friends user pays $2.5, to increase the photo limit in “personal photos” and “albums” user pays $2.5 for each category, to turn the invisible function user again pays $2.5. And even smiles cost money at Odnoklassniki…

Recently, Odnoklassniki became Jacobized, i.e. filled with small icons of Jacobs Morach coffee next to profile pictures of users that says that “a friend … invited you for a coffee Jacobs Monarch.” They say Jacobs Monarch paid hell a lot of money for that free function.



Click to enlarge the pics.

As the function is free, people started using it immediately. For two days, half of the people in my friends list were already invited for a coffee online. Some even started posting statuses asking not to invite for coffee cuz they do not drink it.

Effective way of advertising, dont you think so?

Update: I am Jacobized too! 5 minutes after I published this post, I was invited to drink Jacobs Monarch coffee online with my friend in Germany