The Gong Show

I find it entertaining that while I was in college, Facebook got into all kinds of trouble for trying to organize a nationwide Beirut (Beerpong to some) tournament. The bracket would include teams from schools all around the country and the whole thing would be managed on Facebook. The winners in each region were going to be flown out to NYC for the final few matches in the bracket. Does anyone else remember this?

The event was killed because of a few liabilities:
- promoting underage drinking
- promoting binge drinking
- some issue with contest law in NY regarding the size of the payout.

I remember thinking it was pretty awesome marketing at the time. A bunch of kids around campus were organizing teams and training as if rugby season were approaching.

I also remember thinking they would have to explicitly articulate the rules because so many variations of the game exist. When do you re-rack? Who goes first? Can you blow? Do you get a last chance for retaliation at the end of the game? All of these subtleties vary from college to college, so how was Facebook going to determine the “official” rules.

How can the same company behind this scheme now justify a 15bn valuation? [crickets chirp]

At least Zuckerberg didn’t try to pay a bunch of SoCal girls on Craigslist to contribute to their site. :)