Recently, Calacanis in his post citing ‘credible’ sources wrote about how Digg plans to ‘corrupt’ itself like Netscape by paying its users. He writes;
Attempt to preempt Digg’s schemes?Someone credible just told me that Digg is going to be paying contributors in the next version. They wouldn’t tell me who told them, but I thought it was interesting that there was even a rumor. I say no way, I can’t see Digg going back on their position after saying for months that paying users = corruption.
Anyway, Kevin Rose has replied to Calacanis in his post, but he really didn’t deny it. It was kind of red herring for me to be honest with the tone being rhetoric.
Then, the propagator of many path-breaking ideas, Calacanis has to say this;
Now, can we take it as Calacanis is now believing his doubts over his model in Netscape? He says he is not sure whether what Netscape is doing is right. Though, he asks the question (to whom by the way?) if Netscape should allow its users to post their own stories there, I have a feeling that it may have just belied his thought process on the matter now.I love that concept and I like the way Newsvine is doing it. However, I’m not sure it’s right for Netscape at this point.What do Netscape folks think, should we allow users to post their own stories on Netscape?
Well, is there a successful formula for success in social media? There might be some kind of optimal model, but at the end of the day the one with the quality content will win. So far, both Netscape and Digg are quite some distance from getting into that level.
Update: It seems Kevin Rose has removed the reply post that was here. I can’t find it anymore. However, I am lucky to have the text of what he wrote. Here it is:
Jason, Clever PR stunt, but man, in the end I believe it’s going to do more damage for Netscape than good.... I rarely blog, but I recently saw this post by Jason Calacanis so I thought I’d share my thoughts. Jason, Clever PR stunt, but man, in the end I believe it’s going to do more damage for Netscape than good.
Ya see users like Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit and Flickr because they are contributing to true, free, democratic social platforms devoid of monetary motivations. All users on these sites are treated equally, there aren’t anchors, navigators, explorers, opera-ers, or editors. Jason, I know AOL has given you access to their war-chest, but honestly, take that money and invest it into site development. Listen to your existing community.
Think of what your loyal Netscape users must think - you’re essentially telling them that they aren’t good enough and that you have to buy better users. You can have the best submitters in the world, but if your community doesn’t support you it will never work. As for the top users controlling digg, yes, on digg quality content rules. If users are consistently posting quality stories, they will make the homepage. Let me give you the real numbers from the database. As of right now there are 444,809 registered digg users. Since launch there have been 38,848 popular homepage stories, of which 11,943 were from the ‘Top 100′. That means historically less than 1/3 of homepage stories come from the ‘Top 100′.
Hope this helps - clone on, Kevin ps - have a beer and relax, it’s just diggnation :)
WOW!! Where did the post go Kevin? Sometimes, silence is golden, right? Or is it not? :-)
Comments
Its a logical move to make, and I think its highly likely that not only Digg, but even other popular social bookmarking sites will start compensating their top users.
Also, you may have misinterpreted what Calacanis was saying. His model is not only working, but its working great. What he is saying is that he likes what Newsvine is doing, but he doesn’t feel that Netscape is at a point where they can try the Newsvine model.
I remember not so long ago Kevin was saying that Digg would never pay and he was bagging others for thinking about doing it. I guess we will have to wait and see if he sticks to his word.