2.0 Adsense on the Edge for Content.
It's Saturday here so that means its AFL football time in my world. I watched some of the Crows last night, who for the first 2 1/2 quarters actually showed some weakness to a congested game vs the Roos before they pulled away. North made fundamental skill errors, but I saw enough to think Melbourne can challenge Adelaide at the MCG come September (and round 22 when we have them next) if they play a balanced, tactical game.
Today is Rye vs Langwarrin home game. This will be one of the best local games in the Mornington Peninsula League with both sides being top 3 teams. Tomorrow Melbourne plays Fremantle (CJ out, Read in) which means it's only on Foxtel so I'll be watching that at Rye too. Next week Ill be at the G with Strawbs to see the Dees kick some ass.
In the commercial Web 2.0 world, as opposed to the blogging on the sidelines one, Jason Calcanis is spot on about paying the top "user content generators". The reality is no content is free, so real advertising revenue that is generated from content as well as a fixed cost for the base content needs to be paid, and will be increasingly. The bonus to Calacanis playaz is the current base price being offered is far cheaper than traditional media pays; This is just another marketplace evolution.
When you think about how small publishers make money at moment - they place adsense ads on their site. The change here is when you place content on someone else's site, there needs to be a reward structure for that, one of which will be financial. Leaders like flickr were able to avoid sharing revenue or paying for content, and while it wont necessarily be a pre-requisite for online communuties, for some it will help drive their model (esp those like Netscape that need quality, frequent content and have established players with huge depth of content contributors ala digg)
Calacanis.com : "There are thousands of great writers who got their start by free blogging who are now getting paid. Those new folks have lower pay expectations and the $1-a -word crowd was really pissed off about it."
Mike Arrington thinks the "Netscape product is a soulless reproduction" and doesnt think the payments will solve Digg's problems. While it's not the answer to the problem, the more Netscape have paid meta-journalists and then VIP paid contributors, that will assist in giving AOL Netscape end users something of value.
Having worked on large customer portals before - the critical success factors are much different to those of digg and the vc/startup/2.0 world. In fact, the AOL/Netscape audience will probably use a product more based on simplicity and conforming to old school portal/news user experience. (or user precedence as Dave Winer says)
For example, when the new version of beta.netscape was launched, some of the existing users (vocal minority) found the transition too much. Im sure there is quant' research/focucs groups/eye tracking by AOL on what the actual majority think about the changes. (and what needs to be changed)
If AOL keep making the service easier to use and the quality of content is high, and not too tech odd spot focused (ala social news sites) then Jason may well successfully leverage his old school audience with a bit of new school hip. Paying 12 people one $1k is just a small tool/trick in achieving the overall audience migration.
The proof to this story (pre longer term traffic benchmarks before and after) is in the reality and of course the best contributors are interested in the $1k a month offer (for 12 of them to start with ? - equivalent to 1 X FTE) JC certainly knows how to leverage blogosphere discussion (Web 2 crowd love talking about whats not right for the community, blaagh) : "Well over 50 folks from social bookmarking sites have emailed me already. Many of them are in the top 10-20 on the major services. So, while the elite Web 2.0 mafia may not like the concept of paying top contributors, the contributors certainly like the idea!"
Today is Rye vs Langwarrin home game. This will be one of the best local games in the Mornington Peninsula League with both sides being top 3 teams. Tomorrow Melbourne plays Fremantle (CJ out, Read in) which means it's only on Foxtel so I'll be watching that at Rye too. Next week Ill be at the G with Strawbs to see the Dees kick some ass.
In the commercial Web 2.0 world, as opposed to the blogging on the sidelines one, Jason Calcanis is spot on about paying the top "user content generators". The reality is no content is free, so real advertising revenue that is generated from content as well as a fixed cost for the base content needs to be paid, and will be increasingly. The bonus to Calacanis playaz is the current base price being offered is far cheaper than traditional media pays; This is just another marketplace evolution.
When you think about how small publishers make money at moment - they place adsense ads on their site. The change here is when you place content on someone else's site, there needs to be a reward structure for that, one of which will be financial. Leaders like flickr were able to avoid sharing revenue or paying for content, and while it wont necessarily be a pre-requisite for online communuties, for some it will help drive their model (esp those like Netscape that need quality, frequent content and have established players with huge depth of content contributors ala digg)
Calacanis.com : "There are thousands of great writers who got their start by free blogging who are now getting paid. Those new folks have lower pay expectations and the $1-a -word crowd was really pissed off about it."
Mike Arrington thinks the "Netscape product is a soulless reproduction" and doesnt think the payments will solve Digg's problems. While it's not the answer to the problem, the more Netscape have paid meta-journalists and then VIP paid contributors, that will assist in giving AOL Netscape end users something of value.
Having worked on large customer portals before - the critical success factors are much different to those of digg and the vc/startup/2.0 world. In fact, the AOL/Netscape audience will probably use a product more based on simplicity and conforming to old school portal/news user experience. (or user precedence as Dave Winer says)
For example, when the new version of beta.netscape was launched, some of the existing users (vocal minority) found the transition too much. Im sure there is quant' research/focucs groups/eye tracking by AOL on what the actual majority think about the changes. (and what needs to be changed)
If AOL keep making the service easier to use and the quality of content is high, and not too tech odd spot focused (ala social news sites) then Jason may well successfully leverage his old school audience with a bit of new school hip. Paying 12 people one $1k is just a small tool/trick in achieving the overall audience migration.
The proof to this story (pre longer term traffic benchmarks before and after) is in the reality and of course the best contributors are interested in the $1k a month offer (for 12 of them to start with ? - equivalent to 1 X FTE) JC certainly knows how to leverage blogosphere discussion (Web 2 crowd love talking about whats not right for the community, blaagh) : "Well over 50 folks from social bookmarking sites have emailed me already. Many of them are in the top 10-20 on the major services. So, while the elite Web 2.0 mafia may not like the concept of paying top contributors, the contributors certainly like the idea!"
posted by redbarren at 10:42 AM
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