AI companion Friend appears to have spent most of its funds on buying friend.com.
Avid Amoeba
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471M

Dot-com vibes.

The article is even more wack than the price for the domain. They want to launch a $99 necklace that listens to everything you say while it “forms its own thoughts” about it. Then instead of talking to you, it just texts you when IT “wants” (read: on a timer or based on a system prompt)

The monetization is a one-time $99, no subscription. That’s … suspicious from a privacy perspective.

That honestly seems pretty low for friend.com

Although the fact they’re developing hardware on less than a million dollar budget is bananas, let alone the other whack ideas

I remember when the place I worked at changed names and some Russian guy was sitting on the domain name, wouldn’t let it go for less than a million.

The CEO signed off on it after a day of consideration. Really changed my perspective on how much money these companies were sitting on.

@smeg@feddit.uk
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“People just don’t get consumer, I view this as saving money. Much less money needs to be spent on marketing, it’s a one time thing,” Schiffmann said.

The fact that we’re now reading this article and talking about it kind of proves his point!

Speak for yourself; I’m not going to read the article and just assume it’s silly garbage based on comments and having seen a few garbage products in my day.

Please note the title is misleading. The domain was sold for 1.8 million, but with a payment plan. So that 1.8 million gets spread out of a longer time. Sure some of the initial funding paid for it, but it’s misleading to say it spent most of their funds.

Justin
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It’s a bubble

Archive link against the pay/subscription wall

@sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al
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Thank you. I run BPC and forget that not everyone does.

Friend.com for those who don’t want to read the article

They should have called it Friend Computer instead.

Malgas
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Indeed, friend citizen. Would you like some Bouncy Bubble Beverage?

Or just use AI or IO instead of com

TehPers
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Looks like the article requires an account. Is there an archived version?

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