I love it when people think first and then post (as opposed to some people who just throw out flames because they're friends with certain folks). Think about things for a little bit and you will come up with logical, well-thought out blog posts like this one by Nicholas Carr. He nails it when he talks about why the masses in crowdsourcing have not been paid:
"We weren't yet able to assign a value - in monetary terms - to what these workers were doing; we weren't even able to draw distinctions between what they were contributing. We couldn't see the talent for the crowd."
Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!
Nick Denton, and Brian and I at WIN, came up with a system for blogs: paying bloggers by the post. Most folks had a problem with this and wouldn't take the risk. What if they write a two line post? What if they spend 10x on one post as another? What if they just point to something? What if the post takes them five minutes?
Who cares? Look at how much you make from the post and assign a value to the 300 posts a person does over the month (in our world it's $7-12 a post).
Same thing with social bookmarking... no one has a system and we just came up with a system. $1,000 for AT LEAST 150 stories. Is that too much? Maybe. Not enough? Perhaps... time will tell and we will work it out. You have to start somewhere people!
Nicholas Carr nails it.
Reader Comments
(Page 1 of 1)2. Man yer wicked. I love it. Free enterprise for the win!
Posted at 2:41PM on Jul 19th 2006 by jay kistler
3. I find it hard to believe that one can rise to the ranks of VP with grammar like "their" instead of "they are" and "out cry"
Posted at 3:34PM on Jul 19th 2006 by Tim McDonald
4. Length (in words or time spent) isn't a great metric either. There is an inherent value in the information being conveyed, and I can definitely buy into the idea of doing it in aggregate instead of a "per post" situation. (Which really just wouldn't scale well for you guys!).
Nick is exactly right on that point. To have the quality people continue to contribute ad infinitum, they're going to need an incentive. The best will eventually get fed up with others making money of their quality content - and if you don't pay them, they will find another avenue to capitalize on that content and expertise.
As an outside, I think that's why I think the WIN model really worked - you simply paid passionate people to do what they would have done otherwise, under a single umbrella and with the marketing and technical resources they wouldn't have otherwise.
At the end of the day, this is all media and content creation. In the panel I attended last week(http://slashstar.com/blogs/tim/archive/2006/07/19/The_Changing_Media_and_the_Significance_of_Blogging.aspx), Meg Hourihan described "blogging" best - the Internet's equivalent of the printing press. I think that idea is applicable to social media, bookmarking, and many of these other "principles" behind what many might call Web 2.0.
Posted at 3:48PM on Jul 19th 2006 by Tim Marman
5. Rock on Calcanis. Its lonely at the top, just keep on innovating.
Posted at 4:08PM on Jul 19th 2006 by Steve at realVerse
8. I have been thinking about this story as I have seen it come into my feed today a few times. At first I didn't like the concept, later I came to realize that it is like blogging, EXCEPT how does one disclose they occasionally get paid to bookmark. I think so long as your profile on the networking site discloses it in their profile, just like a decent blogger announces their disclosures (ala Jeff Jarvis example http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/about-me/ ) Then I have no issue with the idea.
9. I suggested why the Web is acting the way it is: http://dasickis.com/blog/
10. From the digger's point of view, it's a great deal. I don't think anyone who's thought about it would argue that. But from the other side of it, what exactly are you paying for? You're going to pay someone to submit links to "interesting" web sites for $12K? These people aren't known by anyone outside of the sites they use, there's no name recognition. If people aren't going to your site now, why whould adding these people help that?
I don't see the logic in this move. Is he saying that the links currently being submitted are just crap and need betterlink hunters? If that's the case then I can see some value in hiring these people.
Also, why include Flickr users? Aren't they photographers? How does that make them good at getting good web links?
Posted at 3:44AM on Jul 20th 2006 by Dean Lowe
11. On the Web today two bloggers with a dozen identities can manufacture a consensus, so if you are recruiting Navigators how can we trust the new Netscape?
I can?t believe you?re quoting Nicky Carr and I hope he doesn?t apply to be a Navigator.
Posted at 8:17AM on Jul 20th 2006 by paul
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1. Why don't you share profits with everyone, not just the top 50 users? Here's what I suggest: http://and.vox.com/library/post/what-netscape-should-really-do.html
Posted at 2:30PM on Jul 19th 2006 by Alek