Jason Calcanis, General Manager of Netscape.com realized that the top contributors to social networking sites like Digg, Reddit, Newsvine, Delicious and Flickr spend a lot of time contributing to the network. Two, even three, hours a day. Without pay. Their work is what makes social networking sites successful.
Of course, they aren't doing it for the sake of Digg or Reddit, et al - they are doing it for the fame. The chance to say "I'm the #1 contributor on Digg". Back to Jason - he realized the time spent on these sites and offered the very top contributors $1,000 a month for contributing at least 150 stories a month to Netscape (which is pretty much like Digg).
Prominent Digger Derek van Vliet told at Mark Glaser at MediaShift:
I must admit, until now I haven’t given that much credit to myself for what I am doing on Digg. I give all credit to the authors of the content I link to. Obviously whatever value I have added to the online world would be nothing without them.
I have been aware for a while that sites like Digg and Flickr are making millions off of users like me, so I have been considering possible ways to share that wealth among contributors. I think of all the ways you could go (pay per post, ad revenue share, etc.), Jason may have the best idea with the monthly flat rate. If he is convinced that he will get a return on that investment, then it is a win-win.
Calcanis' media show has certainly resulted in publicity - I may have heard about Netscape's shift to social media, but I'd never looked there. Now that I have, will I go back? Probably not - Digg has better stories. Michael Arrington thinks the whole scheme smells of desperation:
Netscape has a massively larger audience than Digg, but has absolutey failed to impact Digg growth at all. AOL placed a big bet on this product, and I imagine they want to see fast results. They aren’t getting those results.
...
Netscape may gain some human assets and may get better story submissions, but Digg will probably continue to thrive.
Comment Preview