Slashdot Mirror
'Surkus' App Pays Users To Line Up Outside New Restaurants (chicagotribune.com)
A new app called Surkus allows restaurants to manufacture their ideal crowd and pay people to stand in place like extras on a movie set. The app reportedly uses "an algorithmic casting agent of sorts" to hand-pick people according to age, location, style and Facebook "likes." All of this is done to create the illusion that a restaurant is busy and worthy of your hard-earned money. Chicago Tribune reports: They may look excited, but that could also be part of the production. Acting disengaged while they idle in line could tarnish their "reputation score," an identifier that influences whether they'll be "cast" again. Nobody is forcing the participants to stay, of course, but if they leave, they won't be paid -- their movements are being tracked with geolocation. Welcome to the new world of "crowdcasting." Surkus raises new questions about the future of advertising and promotion. At a time when it has become commonplace for individuals to broadcast polished versions of their lives on social media, does Surkus give businesses a formidable tool to do the same, renting beautiful people and blending them with advertising in a way that makes reality nearly indiscernible? Or have marketers found a new tool that offers them a far more efficient way to link brands with potential customers, allowing individuals to turn themselves into living extensions of the share economy using a structured, mutually beneficial transaction? The answer depends on whom you ask.
If there is a queue at a restaurant, then I certainly wont be going, and anyone joining the queue will either be waiting forever, or have to be told its a fake?
I have to wonder what type of people would be spending their time doing this.
They have enough money for a smartphone, and to look 'smart' in some demographic way, however their time is worthless enough that they can afford to be paid (I assume not much) to stand around doing nothing...
It shouldn't take more than a quick look in the door to see that the place is empty, and yet there is a queue outside ;)
This may work in New Yawk, San Fran, or LA, where people care about getting into the "hottest" restruants and posting social media shit for assholes who care. I live in a normal town, I'll make a reservation for a special occasion. Can't get in, no problemo? I'll just try someone else.
I make a reservation then can't get in (has never happened). You'll get a 0 star rating on yelp.
This reminds me of a movie/TV prop supplier company who rented out cardboard people to fill up theaters and stadiums in the backgrounds. They used roughly 80% cardboard dummies and 20% real people who would move and squirm to make the crowd look alive. (Tell your date you're a "professional squirmer".) The ratio of real people was typically higher near the front (close by) seats.
The cardboard dummies were based on photos of about 25 different people with hand alterations so that duplicates didn't stand out. That way they had fewer batch runs to prepare.
Fairly often some of the human "seat" actors ("extras") would mutilate the dummies out of job security, ripping arms off, drawing black-eyes on them, giving women mustaches, giving men boobs, etc. Thus, the co. had to spend a lot of time repairing them after shoots.
Now they probably use mostly CGI and/or canned footage stitched in via digital motion smoothers etc.
Table-ized A.I.
sadly, I don't think we'll ever get back to the days when advertising had to be creative, but we can't undo the invention of analytics.
We didn't need apps to do that. We get a bunch of friends progressively come together to stare at the empty sky showing blank expression, and then random strangers just join in until it became a crowd of people. Afterward, we left making the crowd stares at unknowns.
Same for a line, we get our friends to randomly lineup in a particular place like outside the restroom/water closet/toilet where the door is closed, and make random guys wait behind us patiently.
I could see this working better for a nightclub, where part of the draw is knowing you paid to get into a place that's full of lots of attractive people.
But a restaurant? The new ones that opened out by me and had lines just made me decide to hold off a few days before visiting them. (After all, most new restaurants really don't have their food preparation or service down yet, so you tend to get a less than ideal experience.)
As someone else on here pointed out too; won't people realize something's not quite right if the place isn't totally full on the inside? If I saw a long line and empty tables inside, that would tell me the restaurant is short-handed and service will be really poor. That would make me leave.
If you want to generate a buzz and a big line for the sake of photo ops and media coverage, it's a far better investment to give away free food to people. Krispy Kreme doughnut shops do that all the time when opening new locations. First day, you get a free one with each visit.
Actually all this app is trying to do is automate the middle man known as "promoters." In most cases only the promoters get paid, the guests they bring only get free food and drinks, by shifting some of the procedes they hope the in-crowd and aspiring-models will decide to go with them instead of traditional promoters
Have gnu, will travel.
Shouldn't it be spelled Sukurs?
To further elaborate, this app actually has a pretty good chance of succeeding if it can execute. Most promoters are very unprofessional due to largely being addicted to alcohol/drugs (hazard of the occupation I guess) and owners/managers would love nothing more than have security show them the door