1. Yeah, I'm surprised that there is so much criticism around the idea.

That said, how do you get rid of someone who becomes a bad bookmarker?

Also, doesn't it just walk the line of rev-sharring revenue from someone like AdBrite or AdSense or your user-generated-content site? Forums and other sites sort of do that now. I don't know anyone making a living off it though.

-david

Posted at 3:29PM on Jul 26th 2006 by David Ulevitch

2. http://jonathanbaldwin.blogspot.com/2006/05/good-point-well-made.html

This is so my favorite GapingVoid.

Posted at 3:32PM on Jul 26th 2006 by Conrad Quilty-Harper

3. It has been more than a week, now, since the offer was made. I'm just wondering if anybody has actually been "hired", yet, or what the time table is for this.

Posted at 3:40PM on Jul 26th 2006 by Tom Simpson

4. I seriously want to help out netscape. Digg, reddit, shoutwire,etc are all used to post news but there's also the promotion aspect. Many people go to these sites and submit their own blogs, sites, etc hoping for a winner and the ensuing tidal wave of hits to their site. The DiggScape bookmarklet is step one. Now these 'site promoters' can potentially have a double win fall of traffic. I'm going to work on other ways to make it easier to duel-promote their sites.

Posted at 4:44PM on Jul 26th 2006 by Jeromy

5. Don't you just love the way capitalism works. It's a discussion I have been having with a co-worker. Social media or democratic media is based on the idea that everyone has the opportunity for a voice. But, like everything else, the cream of the crop rises to the top.

Calacanis has great vision here because someone else WOULD HAVE done what he did in one form or another. He had the foresight to do it first.

Posted at 7:24PM on Jul 26th 2006 by Russell Page

6. Man, *that's* what I should have made my new business cards. Damn!

Posted at 9:05PM on Jul 26th 2006 by C.K. Sample III

7. @ #4
"....Many people go to these sites and submit their own blogs, sites, etc hoping for a winner and the ensuing tidal wave of hits to their site...."

Isn't that what Jason called site owners "smart" for doing on Netscape with their content here?

http://www.calacanis.com/2006/07/23/smart-site-owners-are-getting-huge-traffic-from-netscape/

Posted at 3:44AM on Jul 27th 2006 by Steve

8. "NO ONE IS SAYING PAYING PEOPLE IS A BAD IDEA!"

I believe they have. At the very least they have said that paying people makes things undemocratic.

Actually here's a quote from http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/07/digging_deepershould_community.html

"I don't see why people should get paid for submitting stories."

So, yes, people ARE saying it's bad to pay people for submitting stories, or that they at least don't see the point in it.

"What people are saying, that Jason is trying to avoid, is that paying people WILL NOT HELP NETSCAPE."

We don't know that yet.

Posted at 12:43PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Christian

9. "The fact that none of the Diggers have asked for money means that they have no problem doing it for free."

No, it means that they have allowed themselves to get suckered into the wrong end of the serfsourcing phenomenon and they don't realize things could be better. They get buttered up by Kevin Rose saying, "Hey, thanks for all your hard work guys. It really means a lot to me. If you ever need a t-shirt or a gift certificate to Chili's just send my secretary's assistant an e-mail. I'm sure she could work something out for you." Jason made a good point about the fact that there are professional firemen and volunteer ones. The professional ones are full-time. The volunteer ones don't mind being volunteer because they might help out one night every two weeks or so.

"And it means Jason doesn't really get the motivation behind user-generated content."

No, it means Jason is willing to pay people for the work they do, for devoting a *significant* amount of time to content-building on his site. He is saying, "I can compensate you in a more realistic manner than Kevin can and not just shine you on."

Posted at 12:59PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Christian

10. I have to agree with you Jason. I'm a very happy digger (and very longtime digger) and it's amazing how well Kevin's system has worked. It's pretty much the equivalent of nike paying the guys who assemble shoes nothing and keeping all the profit, while tossing the workers the odd pair of shoes to keep them quiet. Digg takes and takes from their members and on occasion tosses them some hits. It's actually a pretty shitty system.

Had the offer been made to me I would have taken it. But i do see a flaw in the offer.

I Hear the $1000 digit thrown around a lot. Why not instead, pay top users based on their activity at netscape?

Anyways Jason, I love the idea. At first i was sour about the new netscape but now i find it's not so bad. Good luck and come check out my personal blog sometime @ SupaDawg.com

Posted at 1:35PM on Jul 27th 2006 by SupaDawg (Chris Palmer)

11. I suppose Google should start paying people that search the most using their search engine? After all, it would be nothing without the users, or sweatshop workers as SupaDawg calls them....right?

Posted at 2:16PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Steve

12. "I suppose Google should start paying people that search the most using their search engine?"

Uh . . . nice try. Not even the same issue at all. People using a search engine is not the same as people adding content to a site. In fact, they are pretty much completely opposite situations.

Posted at 2:28PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Christian

13. Steve, that isn't a fair comparison. Google does all the work themselves. They already pay people to maintain the indexing of websites at google. Google already has a huge staff handling what the users see.

I don't think you should get paid to use a service. People who click the digg button are just users. Guys like dirtyfratboy spend hours upon hours submitting stories to digg with no compensation... I think it's more than fair to offer to pay him something... Which kevin should have done a long time ago.

Again, I love digg, I use digg and I've been on digg when 100 diggs was the most dugg story of the day.

Jason is trying something radical by offering to salary these guys for their work. I say more power to him. If it fails we know it's not a model that will work, but if it succeeds it will change everything. Much the same way that paying bloggers changed everything.

Posted at 2:28PM on Jul 27th 2006 by SupaDawg (Chris Palmer)

14. Okay, I'll take back the Google comaprison. Perhaps WikiPedia is a better one?

Posted at 2:38PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Steve

15. Retraction accepted. Wikipedia could be the same and it could be different. I have contributed a small amount to Wikipedia but not enough that I would claim compensation for it. But some have said that there are a few users who contribute a significant amount of the content to Wikipedia and that they should be compensated monetarily. Part of it depends on how much money the whole operation is bringing in and if the profits (if any) are being shared fairly.

Posted at 2:47PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Christian

16. Wouldn't it be "Surfsourcing" not "Serfsourcing"?

Posted at 7:30PM on Jul 27th 2006 by David N.

17. Wouldn't be bad to pay people if you hadn't copied the whole idea from digg.....

"Clone on"

Posted at 9:38PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Kevin Poirier

18. Yeah wouldn't be bad to pay them but at least come up with an original idea for yourself first.......Question calacanis, have you seen digg and your site?? Do you not have more of a standard than to straight copy and idea from another site?? First off, to compare the success of each one can just look at the top page stories...Diggs stories have hundreds and thousands of diggs....Netscapes has about 20.....Bye Bye Netscape

Posted at 9:45PM on Jul 27th 2006 by Kevin Poirier

19. "First off, to compare the success of each one can just look at the top page stories...Diggs stories have hundreds and thousands of diggs....Netscapes has about 20.....Bye Bye Netscape"

Obviously you weren't around for the glory days of digg when a couple hundred diggs was the top dugg story of the day. Hell, i remember a time at digg when they were about as busy as netscape is. Nobody gets huge overnight.

Yes, I agree, Jason outright stole the entire concept from Jay O. & Kevin... That's a given. The main difference (and reason the sites can co-exist) is that netscape is launching with a much broader range of topics, and because of the "achor" idea it will be a lot more friendly to the average computer user (mom who checks for emails from the kids)

If Jason wants to pay people then great. That just makes it even more different from digg. The less similar the two services are the more likely they will survive together.

Posted at 10:55AM on Jul 28th 2006 by SupaDawg (Chris Palmer)

20. "Wouldn't it be 'Surfsourcing' not 'Serfsourcing'?"

No.


Steve, if you think it's great that the "top Diggers" don't get paid for their contributions and that they don't even want to get paid then, hey, more power to you. Maybe you will help us reach a state in society where nobody gets paid for anything. Money really isn't all it's cracked up to be, anyway. But protesting to the degree that you are that they really should not get paid just looks silly though. You can't just ease up and say, "Maybe a little monetary compensation isn't so bad. Let's just wait and see." Instead, your words depict somebody tensing up, turning red in the face and yelling, "No! Don't EVER pay anybody for contributing to a news site! Idea bad!! Hulk smash!!!"

Posted at 12:03PM on Jul 28th 2006 by Christian