back to article Supermodel Lily Cole in Impossible partnership with Jimbo Wales, YOU

Supermodel Lily Cole has launched a new social network, dubbed Impossible, that relies on the good nature of strangers to exchange "gifts" on the site for free. A cursory glance at Impossible appears to bring forth a variety of people who are trustafarians, fashionistas, stalkers, Jimmy Wales or some peculiar hybrid of all the …

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  1. Khaptain Silver badge

    Supermodel ?

    Supermodel - NOT. More like a red-headed version of ET.

    Website Good Idea- NOT - Who did she sleep with in order to "obtain" £200 000 for that ? Can we safely presume that she is merely the name behind the project.. If so then there is the first fail, I had to look up Google to even know who she was. If they said the idea had been Jimbos then I would have simply laughed about it being a silly idea.

    People sharing things for free, I doubt it. Most altruistic ideads end up dead in the water or surrounded by scam artists.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Trollface

      Yes, I am available for consulting jobs

      So much naysaying.

      Next you will pontificating against altruism like Ayn Rand and segue into how it leads to National-Socialism/Communism.

      IT'S GOING TO SUCCEED, I SAY.

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: Yes, I am available for consulting jobs

        @DAM - Assure me, you're not going to invest your life saving into this little capital venture.....

        I wish to here more donkeys "naysaying"....

        I wish to hear the Pope, pontificating....

        I wish the egosit were more altruistic.

        I wish Ayn Rand wrote easier books to understand.

        I wish that Segue-ing would lead me somewhere.....

        I wish that ex-pats were more Nationalistic.

        I wish that the anti-social become more Social.

        I wish that Communism didn't mean losing my comforts.

        Et voila, I could become a member of Impossible..

    2. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Re: Supermodel ?

      "People sharing things for free, I doubt it. Most altruistic ideads end up dead in the water or surrounded by scam artists."

      Can I use this quote when Future You shouts about how Android is brilliant because it's Free Software?

      I rarely downvote posts, but I made an exception for the nasty implication that the only way a woman can obtain money is by sleeping with a rich man.

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: Supermodel ?

        Since when was Android free ? Next you wil be telling us that Google is also free..

        Think about what you are saying first....

        >I rarely downvote posts, but I made an exception for the nasty implication that the only way a woman can obtain money is by sleeping with a rich man.

        There was absolutely nothing intentionally sexist in my remark and nothing was implied, that is merely your choice of interpretation. I was referring more to the fact that it is difficult to understand how anyone managed to obtain 200K for such a product without there being some form of "pot de vin".

        Would you have given this woman 200K for this project based solely on the idea?

        1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

          Re: Supermodel ?

          "absolutely nothing intentionally sexist in my remark"

          Okay, imagine the story was about a famous footballer setting up a social media site. Would you have questioned whether he was giving blow-jobs to get the funding, or would you have just stated that someone thought that having a famous person behind the project was worth £200k of support?

          Try hire a well-known figure to do publicity for your company, and you'll see that 200k isn't a lot of money. In the UK, where Cole has a very high profile, this is a good deal. The simple fact of her involvement will get the company the kind of broad-market press coverage most media startups can't dream of.

          The question of whether someone should be given £200k of taxpayers money for something like this is a different one, but governments give business startup grants to all manner of lost causes... much like VCs do,

          1. Irongut

            Re: Supermodel ?

            "In the UK, where Cole has a very high profile"

            She does? I was going to entitle my post "Who?" because I have absolutely no idea who she is.

            None whatsoever.

            1. rh587

              Re: Supermodel ?

              She's been in a handful of films - including the first of the new St Trinians films, and is the global face of Rimmel London (I spied a big hoarding with her on in a Rimmel store in New Delhi no less).

              I'm going to take a wild guess you're not the target market. She's well known amongst their intended users, which is kind of what matters.

        2. Martin
          FAIL

          Re: Supermodel ?

          Statement:-

          Who did she sleep with in order to "obtain" £200 000 for that ?

          Statement:-

          There was absolutely nothing intentionally sexist in my remark and nothing was implied, that is merely your choice of interpretation.

          Simple question - would it have even crossed your mind to say "Who did he sleep with to get that?" if it had been a male, rather than female?

          Don't bother to answer - you and I and everyone else here all know the answer is No.

          So yes - sexist.

          1. Swarthy

            Re: Supermodel ? (@Martin)

            You are correct.

            The proper question would be "Who did he blow to get that?"

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Supermodel ?

        > I rarely downvote posts, but I made an exception for the nasty implication

        > that the only way a woman can obtain money is by sleeping with a rich man.

        For some people sex is a commodity with the same value as a pack of chewing gum. The more attractive the person the less value sex has. What, you think famous sports figures that have slept with 20K+ women do it because they think sex is sacred? The same goes for famous models.

  2. Fihart

    Who she ?

    as above

  3. VinceH

    Optional

    " what is impossible?

    impossible.com - is a new website"

    ...that uses a bloody awful typeface on its "What is impossible?" page.

  4. S4qFBxkFFg
    WTF?

    entire article

    What is this I don't even

    1. Magnus_Pym

      Re: entire article

      Me to. I only read the article because I didn't understand the headline. I've read it through twice now and I'm still none the wiser.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: entire article

        scared_doge.jpg

  5. Crisp

    What exactly is Lily Coles relevance?

    She didn't write it, she probably wont use it, and she's managed to get hold of £200,000 of tax payers money to do it.

    You could quite easily replace Lily with any other meat puppet and the result would be exactly the same.

  6. Frankee Llonnygog

    Impossible?

    The next menshn.com

    1. countd
      Devil

      Re: Impossible?

      At least Mensh paid for menshn.com herself rather than dipping her hands into our pockets. What a colossal waste of time and money.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    "Supermodel Lily Cole has launched a new social network, dubbed Impossible, that relies on the good nature of strangers to exchange "gifts" on the site for free."

    And how, exactly, is this different from something like, say, Freecycle?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Freecycle people don't get 200k of government (read our) cash thrown at them....

  8. Tom 7

    Veni Vidi Reliqui

    Front page didnt look...welcoming.

  9. ISYS
    Paris Hilton

    Lily Cole's best contribution to the internet is her work with Juergen Teller........

    1. Gordon 10
      Mushroom

      NSFW

      I just knew Googling Juergen Teller on Google images was a bad idea - but I did it anyway.

      The IT police are coming for me......

  10. Richard 1

    Not only that but it's a crap web site, too.

    I actually went to the bother of registering to see what it's all about and the lame front page of wishy-washy 'wishes' with no discernible way to sort or filter doesn't get any better when you log in. The 'wishes' range from stupid to totally stupid. Freecycle is WAY better than this and even that isn't particularly well implemented. Can I have £200,000 to start a website that nobody will use and was written by a teenager in his bedroom over the weekend?

    PS. I don't wish to promote the site myself as I'm ugly.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    People exchanging gifts for free

    Isn't this just internet 'Swap-Shop' (sorry Multicoloured Swap Shop). Does the web site have Noel Edmunds pop-ups?

    Now what we really need is internet Tiswas....yeah (or is that what you tube is).

  12. DavidJB

    I hope they have a good tax lawyer. People who work not for money but in return for goods or services are liable to income tax on 'benefits in kind'. If this scheme ever catches on the tax authorities will be all over it.

  13. Gregory Kohs

    Jimbo Wales and his usual quarter-truths

    "When I started Wikipedia, I didn’t have a concern for a business model..." Oh, Jimbo -- you didn't start Wikipedia, Dr. Larry Sanger did. He's the one who asked you to install the wiki freeware; he's the one who named it "Wikipedia"; and he's the one who issued the first public call for participation on the project. As for not having a concern for a business model, is that why Jimbo publicly announced in March 2002 the following about Wikipedia?

    "Just as the National Geographic Society is supported in large part by advertisments in the National Geographic Magazine, I expect this to be a potentially necessary thing at some point in the future, if we wish to have an impact beyond our own little corner of the Internet. (And, I think we all do.)"

    You can tell when Jimmy Wales is fibbing, when his lips are moving.

  14. eagleeye

    a gift..of manipulation

    so the 'government' probably influenced by Wales is endowing a rich model who has a ludicrous sense of self-entitlement (particularly to freebies, see stolen bicycle replaced story of a year or so ago) with public funds for an ill thought through undergraduate level concept. To those who have more shall be thrown. Impossible is well named.

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