Empire Avenue is a hot trendy new social media app that wants you to sell yourself and your social media soul. This “social stock market game” has you buying other people to connect with them for free. The idea is that instead of following or just being friends with other people, you buy shares to connect with people you are interested in, brands you love, or celebrities. Empire Ave actually launched last year, but has been busy the last few months revamping features to the point today’s users have an entirely new experience – and the concept is trying to go viral.

On Empire Avenue, you connect with your Facebook profile, followed by your LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube accounts. Based on your activity and engagement with others, your profile is given a share price (or, what really amounts to a score.) People can then invest in you by giving you currency called Eaves. These people then own a virtual chunk of you, also called Eaves. As more people buy shares, your share price increases. Every day, you earn more Eaves based on your online activity – and people who own shares of you earn more too. Anyone can invest in any profile – whether you, or someone more famous – such as Justin Bieber.

Monopoloy and Social Media. And that’s really what is at the heart of Empire Ave – game mechanics. While game mechanics that reward activity are already the next big thing (we saw several hot ideas at Launch earlier this year), we’ve already seen the rise, and starting to see the fall, of game mechanics in social media through apps like FourSquare. It was fun for a little while to “check in” for a badge, but at the end of the day (or really, at the end of last year) people realized there was nothing at the end of the road. A few check-in’s yielded a mayorship that earned you 10% of your daily mocha, but that was about it. Empire Ave utilizes a score in the form of fake money with more badges and the prize of “owning” your more famous Facebook friends and Followers – or buying those you wish to connect with. I cringe at yet another irrelevant “score”, and certainly don’t want to be “bought” by any friends or followers of mine (that’s just weird). If I want to make a connection with someone, there are more legitimate ways than offering money or bartering a social media “score” with them. That’s a little weird, too. Actually, it’s kind of asinine.

Empire Ave may yet succeed with those who just want to play the game – perhaps those who take social media a little less seriously. The problem is that Empire Ave is a a web-based app that layers on top of exisiting social media experiences. Social media engagement is already lowest during traditional 9-5, at-your-desk (or at school) hours. Unless Empire Ave kicks out an app, I can’t imagine people will have enough time to procrastinate enough to use the Web app at work, or have enough time at home to sit down and truly get into it without the addition of some farmland. I’m sure some 15 year old school girls would be a perfect market for the game – who wouldn’t want to try to buy Justin Bieber, afterall?

Is there really a point to buying and selling an interest in people? Is this the ultimate expression of your interest in someone or merely a stupid game? I think the app misses the point of using social media and even what game mechanics are evolving into (think more competition, less individual rewards). If you’ve tried Empire Ave out and think otherwise, though, leave a comment – I’m curious if anyone else is getting anything out of it.