Other competitors: http://crowdfactory.com http://www.curebit.com http://socialtwist.com

How does this service differentiate from those already established in this space?

One way we are different is that we also offer a fully featured consumer experience, the API is awesome for businesses but we also bring an audience to brands since we are a marketplace with both sides.

I like the idea, but I don't understand why I'd use referly for this. If I'm going to spend the time to implement their api on my site, I might as well just implement the whole thing. It isn't like this is that hard of a problem to solve.

Its true that the technology of creating referral programs isn't hard, but sadly it usually gets relegated to the back burner for development teams who don't want to maintain it. Marketers who want to run experiments with referral marketing find they can't get buy in, so they don't try it.

By offering an API that marketers can bring to developers, in a format developers can respect, we are hoping to change that.

The problem I see is when the marketing department wants 'one more quick feature'... you know it will happen. I'm all for not re-inventing the wheel, I'm just not sure that this api is that much of a value add.

I also tend to shy away from businesses which haven't figured out their pricing yet. '100% of funds are passed through'... but no mention of what happens when the beta is over. 5%? 10%? 3.5%? Give some sort of guesstimate.

To me, that also says you're still trying to figure out your own business model, which is fine, but not something that I'd want to build my own business around. I want to know you're going to be around in a year and that I'm not going to regret not implementing this myself.

Don't let me sound discouraging. Keep plugging away though. I'll check back again when I'm ready to implement this on my own site and make a decision then. =)

Sounds like we better hurry and decide. Thanks for the candid feedback, its the best kind and I hope you'll keep it coming

A very lively and interesting discussion on this launch is going at this moment on this other thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4281724

Really intrigued by the social referral program. I'm excited to play around with the API and implement it on our company site

In the case of fraud where does the liability lie ?

The merchant is required to report chargebacks to use within 60 days

Getting a 404 on the homepage.

http://www.refer.ly/

Site was briefly overloaded, everything is good now

Will this ever be integrated into an existing cart like shopify, so that total non developers can use it?

Yes! I am working on a Shopify plugin right now actually - can you email me at [email protected] so I can hear what you'd like me to make sure to include?

I have no current use for it so I can't help you, but I know if I was to make an e-commerce site, I would use Shopify. Your offering looks very useful, so I asked for future reference :)