It’s time social networking sites pay us for participation! Don’t you think so?
Just a day after IndyaRocks announced Social money, i.e. awarding users for their participation, I came across this interesting observation on why social networks should pay their users for participation ((which the author calls social networking license agreement)
Dear Social Networking Site Developers,
It has come to my attention that there are simply too many of you.
I am already a member of the social networks most likely to fulfill your promises of having fun swapping “content” with my buddies, and catching up with old friends. Anything more at this point is simply busywork, and should be compensated accordingly.
As it stands, you benefit more from my joining your network than I do. After all, the very value of a social network is its population, is it not?
Do you agree to this? Don’t you think that we have had enough of adding/inviting friends and catching up with old buddies (a.k.a social networking fatigue)?
For instance, why the heck should one start a blog @ say, MingleBox or any other site? Why leave money on the table (anybody can start a blog and monetize thru’ adsense. right?). What eventually happens is that your participation is monetized by these social networks (YouTube’s $1.65bn, FaceBook’s $30K sponsored groups/qtr etc) and you get nothing!
I agree that social networks provide a platform to connect with your friends, broadcast yourself and blah blah blah…but don’t we have enough of that?
And as more social networks flourish, we will still be doing the same stuff with the same set of friends (i.e. scrapping, uploading videos, adding friends..etc..)
Tell me honestly – if somebody pays for participation, will you shift from say, Orkut to IndyaRocks? If yes, why? If yes, why not?
Do you see the Balance of Power shifting towards the social networkers? I see a possibility of new revenue sharing model that needs to be built in.
What do you say?
pic source
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Related posts:
- Popular Social Networking sites: No signs of FaceBook in India?
- IndyaRocks launches Social Money
- ApnaCircle.com : Sabeer Bhatiya’s foray into Indian social networking space
- IndyaRocks to Launch Social IM – Integrates with all IM Services
- Social Networking Sites in India – A Recap [Traffic Comparison]
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
Now this is a real WTF post
I agree to you on the fact that we do the same stuff in all of the social nets – and as far as I am concerned, I have the same friends in facebook as well as Orkut (I prefer Orkut though)..
So if say IndyaRocks wants me to pay for brnging all of my friends from Orkut to their site, they should pay me – since they benefit from my participation!
right – i guess its a honest and bold move from indyarocks to make users as partners in making money. we should congratulate them for being the first to do this
Very capitalistic thought, but I do see your point!
Well, ibibo tried this stratgy, but they didnt succeed..
I agree with the money part, but the product should be good enough to serve as a replacement. For e.g. = ibibo was not!
IndyaRocks new UI looks neat..havent explored the features..but if they have a good feature set, they stand a good chance of success with their social money feature…
Nice reviews here! Interestingly, before coming here i was reading alootechie and read about sifymall accepting virtual currencyin thir store.wonder if the next wave is all about social money ??any reviews on social moneyoffering sites?
I think generalized SN’s will face this problem….and maybe going niche is the way to go….eg. Flixster, Wellsphere and other such sites targeting different groups of people….
but overall do you think that paying people to come and join a social network is a sustainable business model? it’s like back to 19th,20th century way of doing business where businesses pay upfront licensing fees to operate…..next thing you’ll see is an auction on SN spectrum……
the basic problem is the herd mentality. It’s like the film business…bhai aajkal romantic movies chal rahi hai to hum bhi wahi bana dete hain……..I think SN’s are just one piece of this evolving internet economy and people offering value added services on them will actually be the winners in round two…..all the app developers on facebook and open social or people finding ways to monetize this massive audience pool that’s the way to think about it….look at Slide, rockyou and other such companies, they’ve built their user base by sandbagging on myspace and facebook….and this is yesterday’s news….so how about some money lending, or job hunting or real estate type applications on these SNs…..not that these are all original ideas, but it’s better than paying me to bring my 40 friends to your SN…..reminds me of Mulayam’s rally in UP, bring 10 people and we’ll give you poori sabzi…..