Facebook just took a bite out of the growing affiliate marketing industry, with the recent launch of a new application that could be the next ebay killer. The application is called RadicalBuy (http://apps.facebook.com/radicalbuy). 

The bottom line is that people can buy and sell items on Facebook, which is nothing new. However, RadicalBuy leverages many of FB's social networking features, including allowing friends to "recommend" RB products. A simple affiliate commission scheme can be set up by the vendor.

What does this all mean?

• For merchants - opens up a new channel to sell your products
• For affiliates - gives you a way to earn more money recommending other people's products 

Here's an example of one of my products I set up recently on RadicalBuy:

Before you get too excited, I have to warn you. There is a reason there are over 200 features in affiliate software.

Many features have been added by the affiliate solution industry due to market needs. You have to realize that affiliate marketing involves 3 parties, which can make the transactions complicated - especially when things go wrong.

In this case, there are 5 parties:

1. customer
2. affiliate (optional)
3. merchant
4. RadicalBuy
5. Facebook 

Many features have to do with anti fraud, reporting, and tracking commissions. I don't see RadicalBuy having many features. In fact RB says on their terms of service that they generally won't offer refunds.

Will this kill ebay? Probably not in the near future. They have years of experience and systems in place to protect everyone involved.

Will this kill affiliate software vendors? Probably not. Everyone panicked when Google Analytics bought Urchin. But it didn't kill off the web analytuc industry. Rather it just grew the pie bigger. 

If you're a merchant I suggest you get on Facebook and give it a try. But I have to warn you - there are bound to be some fireworks before this thing is a win-win-win-win-win all around. 

--- (Edited on 12/17/2007 11:46 am [GMT-0600] by Peter) ---