David Erickson: This is from Search Engine Journal‘s Roger Montii. Google has a new service or tool or offering. It’s from Google’s Area 120, kind of skunkworks division.
Monetizing Video Chats
It’s called Fundo, Google Fundo. It is an online service that allows video creators to sell tickets to private events.
It’s basically an end-to-end solution. Everything happens on the site, so you don’t have to download an app; users don’t have to download an app.
But you can create your–I signed up for it, the sign up is very easy. It connects to your YouTube channel. And you can now create events that you can charge for. Video events you can charge for.
Fundo Chat & Photos
There are three types of events. The first type is one-to-one chats, plus photos. So you can charge for basically one-to-one chats.
And then the Plus Photos is a feature where you can basically have a virtual photo booth to take pictures of the person that you’re chatting with together.
Influencer Tool
So it’s kind of like an influencer tool, I think, where celebrities can use it to have an event with a single individual.
Like a book signing, maybe; you know, rather than signing the book in person, you meet the author: You can chat with them one-on-one and get a virtual photo taken with them. It’s more consumer-ish that way.
Fundo Meet & Greets
The second type of event is Meet and Greets. So this is like the one-to-one events, but more people.
BL Ochman: I like that.
Fundo Workshops
David Erickson: And then the third type is Workshops. And this is basically webinars that you can charge for and you can invite as many people as you want, presumably.
But it could be–you know, you and I could do something with small business owners and helping them figure out what they want to do with their online presence, for example.
Fundo Ticketed Events
The security is sound, apparently. According to Fundo, there’s no way for the uninvited guests to crash a Fundo event. The events are ticketed, so only one person per ticket can join.
Fundo Pricing
And the price: It’s free. But I haven’t gotten far enough into the–I haven’t tried it yet, so I don’t know what the transaction fee is for these. I suspect there is one. So I don’t know what it is. But it looks interesting.
It is Google so it could be gone, you know, two weeks from now.
BL Ochman: Usually, they wait till you’re really into it before they take it away.
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