Re: <nettime> paying users for their data

["Rjoly" <rjoly@cooptel.qc.ca>]

Jul 23, 7:02 PM EDT

Get paid for posts? Social networking's new twist

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Facebook and most other social networks are
built on the premise that just about everything should be shared
-except the money those posts produce.

At least two services are trying to change that. Bubblews, a social
network that came out of out of an extended test phase last week, pays
users for posts that attract traffic and advertisers. Another company,
Bonzo Me, has been doing something similar since early July.

"I just feel like everyone on social networks has been taken advantage
of for long enough," says Michael Nusbaum, a Morristown, New Jersey
surgeon who created Bonzo Me. "Facebook has been making a ton of
money, and the people providing the content aren't getting anything."

Bonzo Me is paying its users up to 80 percent of its ad revenue for
the most popular posts.

Bubblews' compensation formula is more complex. It's based on the
number of times that each post is clicked on or provokes some other
kind of networking activity. To start, the payments are expected to
translate into just a penny per view, comment or like. Bubblews plans
to pay its users in $50 increments, meaning it could take a while
for most users to qualify for their first paycheck unless they post
material that that goes viral.

"No one should come to our site in anticipation of being able to quit
their day job," Bubblews CEO Arvind Dixit says. "But we are trying to
be fair with our users. Social networks don't have to be places where
you feel like you're being exploited."

Bubblews is also trying to make its service worthwhile for users by
encouraging deeper, thoughtful posts instead of musings about trifling
subjects. To do that, it requires each post to span at least 400
characters, or roughly the opening two paragraphs of this story.

Technology analyst Rob Enderle believes Bubblews, or something like
it, eventually will catch on.

"I don't think this free-content model is sustainable," Enderle says.
"You can't sustain the quality of the product if you aren't paying
people for the content that they are creating. And you can't pay your
bills if all you are getting are `likes.'"

Gerry Kelly of San Francisco has already earned nearly $100 from
Bubblews since he began using a test version in January. His Bubblews
feed serves as a journal about the lessons he has learned in life, as
well as a forum for his clothing brand, Sonas Denim.

Though Facebook is by far the largest social network, it has a history
of irking users. People have complained when Facebook changed privacy
settings in ways that exposed posts to a wider audience. They have
criticized Facebook for circulating ads containing endorsements from
users who didn't authorize the marketing messages.

More recently, people were upset over a 2012 experiment in which
Facebook manipulated the accounts of about 700,000 users to analyze
how their moods were affected by the emotional tenor of the posts
flowing through their pages. Facebook apologized.

Kelly still regularly posts on his Facebook page to stay in touch with
friends and family, but says he is more leery of the service.

"They just take all your information and make all the money for     s.
themselve It's insane," Kelly say                                   s.

Despite the occasional uproar, Facebook Inc. has been thriving while
feeding off the free content of its 1.3 billion users. The Menlo Park,
California, company now has a market value of about $180 billion, and
CEO Mark Zuckerberg ranks among the world's wealthiest people with
a fortune of about $30 billion, based on the latest estimates from
Forbes magazine.

Advertisers, meanwhile, are pouring more money into social networks
because that is where people are spending more time, particularly on
smartphones. Facebook's share of the $140 billion worldwide market for
digital ads this year is expected to climb to nearly 8 percent, or $11
billion, up from a market share of roughly 6 percent, or $7 billion
last year, according to the research firm eMarketer.

Although it still isn't profitable, short-messaging service Twitter
is also becoming a bigger advertising magnet, thanks largely to its
255 million users who also provide a steady flow of free content.
Twitter's digital ad revenue this year is expected to rise to $1.1
billion, nearly doubling from $600 million last year, according to
eMarketer.

Facebook and Twitter have become such important marketing tools that
celebrities and other users with large social-media followings are
being paid by advertisers to mention and promote products on their
accounts.

Bubblews wants to make money, too, but it also wants to ensure that
everyone using it gets at least a small slice of the advertising pie.

Dixit, 26, who started Bubblews with his college buddy Jason Zuccari,
says the service got about 200,000 users during a "beta" test phase
that began in September 2012. The service unveiled a redesigned
website last week as it finally moved out of testing.

Bonzo Me is even smaller, with just a few thousand users since the
release of apps for the Web, iPhones and Android devices in early
July. The service has paid about $30,000 in ad revenue to users so
far, according to Nusbaum.

Sandy Youssef of New Brunswick, New Jersey, likes being on Facebook,
but she also intends to start posting video on Bonzo Me just in case
she shares something that becomes a big hit.

"We are living in an age when the things you post on the Internet can
go viral, so you may as well get paid for it," she says. "It's time to
spread the wealth."


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEC_SOCIAL_NETWORKING_FOR_PA
Y?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-07-23-19-02-59





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