A little known Digg-fact is that a relatively small group of users submit a large percentage of the stories that end up on the Digg home page. Netscape, which recently relaunched as a Digg-clone, wants to pay those top users to switch over to them. Jason Calacanis, who runs the Netscape property, wrote a post earlier today offering to pay top Digg users $1,000 a month or more to switch to Netscape and submit news there instead.
I have a couple of observations on this. Netscape has a massively larger audience than Digg, but has absolutey failed to impact Digg growth at all. AOL placed a big bet on this product, and I imagine they want to see fast results. They aren’t getting those results. Jason’s post is a sign of desperation more than anything.
There is the question of whether or not this will fix this. Digg’s Achilles heel is that such a small group of active users drives so much of their success. However, even if those users bail to Netscape, others will certainly take their place at Digg. In my opinion, Netscape may gain some human assets and may get better story submissions, but Digg will probably continue to thrive.
At the end of the day, the Netscape product is a soulless reproduction of one of the most interesting cultural experiments occuring on the web right now. It was thrown at millions of mainstream Internet users (previous Netscape portal users) who don’t understand Digg and probably don’t care (yet). If anything, my bet is that total page views at Netscape have dropped since the changeover, possibly substantially. Buying users from Digg won’t change that one bit.
It looks like AOL has a mess on its hands. The obvious question is, will Jason will be the fall guy when it comes time to point fingers?
The deck chairs are being rearranged on the Titanic Netscape.
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Netscape needs to produce a solution that has some type of significant differentiating factors…not just a small feature set that may have some insignifant differences or having editors to sort through the push the top stories. I can not imagine how they would expect to steal market share from Digg.com with a lifeless clone that ads no significant value proposition over anything that is already in the market. Digg has garnered much user goodwill and I think it is going to take much more than an attempt to buy the top users to win over the market. Seems that instead of innovating …they are just trying to throw money at the problem to see what happens…
This reminds me of a joke:
Perhaps the question is now whether Digg users will switch, but at what price.
Damn good joke, and fits nicely too.
If they also buy “normal” Digg users, I would read Netscape…
How about 100 $ months if I go there read to the news daily ?
I love it how these link contributors will be called “Netscape Navigators”. Then if Microsoft launched something similar, I guess they would be called the “Internet Explorers”…
Anyway… Having supplied all of two (!) stories to Newsvine I guess I am not in the target group… meh…
“Digg’s Achilles heel is that such a small group of active users drives so much of their success.” If this is an Achilles heel for Digg, it is also an Achilles heel for nearly every company in existence. Most companies (internet & non-internet) derive the vast majority of their profits from a small percentage of their consumers. The Pareto Principle or ‘80-20 Rule’ says that for many (but, of course, not all) situations “80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes.” Banks for example make the vast majority of their profits from a small percentage of their clients. Which is why those wealthy clients are competed for, catered to, and receive far superior customer service. This isn’t necessarily an Achilles heel to banks, it’s simply a law of nature, a rule of business that they must adapt to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80-20_rule
It is well known that 10% of all Wikipedia users make 80% of all edits, yet that is not seen as an Achilles heel to the company’s success. http://www.ccc.de/congress/200.....slides.pdf
If a small group of highly active users is a “problem” for Digg, it will be a “problem” for Netscape and a “problem” for any other site that has a similar user participation model.
Netscape can count me in as soon as I see the first check in the mail…
Me no workie for free…
Digg succeeded because they grew organically and “trained” their users to learn the systems as they got more complicated. However, I think that Digg growth will slow because the new users will find it complicated and cumbersome to use at first glance. At the same time, it might succeed because it has achieved a kind of momentum that keeps it interesting at the surface.
Irrespective of what this bodes for Netscape, I do think a transition from amateur to pro submitters is inevitable on these kinds of sites. Given the visibilty of digg, it’s irresponsible for PR agencies, political parties, perhaps even intelligence agencies NOT to devote resources to influencing it. So perhaps a PAID “independent” staff will be needed to keep those types in check.
It’s a sensible offering really. I am sure people are only moral up to a certain financial point, and i’d bet it’s below $1000/m (on top of what they earn already).
Whether it’ll actually make people move from digg isn’t really relevant, as AOL have a big audience anyway. Bonus.
James
Has he gone insane?
What is it about AOL that makes people who work there think that money will solve all their problems?
What’s next, pay broadband users to go back to their dial-up service???
Come on, Jason, use that money to buy a clue.
PAY people to submit to those sites?! Thats crazy.
“one of the most interesting cultural experiments occuring on the web right now”
not too sure about that, I signed up for Digg, made a few comments, visited it daily then left within a few months and got my account deleted because I was fed up with all the bitching and children on there. It maybe a good idea, but they just need some quality control.
Yeah, I’m sure many of us were left scratching our heads at why AOL would trust that users would get the Digg concept; then again, nothing like baptism of the masses by fire.
Oh, and given this statement:
Perhaps AOL is betting on the “long tail”?
I feel that so many people are missing the fundamental point as to how stupid this is.
The top posters at digg are the top posters because of how many stories they submit. Do you understand? I’m sure they’re nice people, but they have no special talent for inserting a link inside a text field.
Their stories reach the front page because of a snowball effect. They submit so many stories in a day, that some of them are going to reach that front page. When those stories do reach the front page, people add them as friends, and get to see all the stories they submit from that point fourth.
Now even more of their stories are reaching the front page.
Calcanis seems to believe that so many of their stories are popular because the finds are so amazing, or perfect for the time, and that these top users have acquired this spectacular skill for doing this.
As I have expained above, this is not the case.
Essentially, Calcanis is paying for users. That’s it. Anyone willing to submit 150-400 stories a day on digg WILL become a top digg user.
This man’s stupidity is beyond words. Does he think people are going to follow where the top digg users go? Of course they won’t! People don’t care who submitted the stories! And if one person doesn’t post it, someone else will.
If these digg users go, they will be replaced, and fast. That’s the natural order of digg, or any kind of site that relies on submissions.
Calcanis is paying for membership, in that the Netscape rip is not getting enough submissions. All he is paying for is submissions, but he has fooled himself into thinking he is paying for “talent”.
He’s paying for link whores. As I posted on digg, he might as well post an ad on Craiglist, to the effect of, “WORK FROM HOME! EARN $$$”. What’s the difference here?
Can I get an amen?
First he tries to buy Amanda (Rocketboom) and now this? This guy is a failure, with money to pay for success, without the vision to know where to find it.
3 things:
1. Any hardcore user of Del.icio.us will tell you that Digg is nothing new. It’s just been the best marketed social news / bookmarking service to date (thanks to some personalities from TechTV / Screensavers bringing a substantial audience with them, and also thanks to it being accompanied by one of the funniest and honest video podcasts out there when video podcasts are booming). I love Digg (Disclaimer: I’m a long time user and huge Diggnation fan). I also love Netscape (Disclaimer: I’m Lead Anchor for Netscape). It amazes me the way we are all quick to embrace a multitude of different blogs with different unique voices, praising the strength of that format over more monolithic standards, but for some reason, in the social news space, quite a lot of us tend to batten down the hatches and proclaim, Highlander-style, that there can be only one. Seems very counter-the-norm of internet acceptance.
2. I totally and entirely disagree with the assumption behind this post (and several of the comments) that getting paid to do something debases that thing or is a sign of failure. There are millions of people who love their jobs and who love their jobs more because they are getting paid to do what they love to do. That’s not being a whore. That’s having a healthy integration of your life goals, your job, and the things for which you have passion. Being able to pay people to do what they love to do is a sign of success, not a sign of failure.
3. Netscape has not “failed to impact Digg-growth at all.” We currently have over 24,000 users on the new site and that’s pretty darn good for a site that has only been out of beta for less than a month. I know that it took quite some time for Digg to hit its critical mass point. The difference is that when Digg first launched it wasn’t as immediately visible as our relaunch of Netscape. No one knew what a Digg was back then, so there weren’t any devoted Del.icio.us users complaining about the new Del.icio.us rip-off that had added an artificial voting system on top of the pure magnificence of social bookmarking and had so sorely debased the space with their “soulless reproduction of one of the most interesting cultural experiments occuring on the web.” Early new Netscape is a much easier target than early Digg was, and I think a lot of the criticism that is mounting about the service is hyperbolic and melodramatic as a result of this. It’s the easy approach to critique.
Instead of so easily dismissing the entire site based on these very surface-level comparisons, take a look at what is really different. There is a drastic difference which is evident to me as both a Netscape and Digg user. I will continue to use both for different reasons. I am paid to work on Netscape, but I use it when I’m off the clock too, because I actually enjoy and like the site. If you give it a chance, odds are that you will too.
The main issue here is that more and more, free (quality) content providers will begin to disappear, as all this stuff matures…
It does not bode well for the business models that depend any particular element of the business equation to be free, and there are far too many of those around.
As for Calcanis, well, he’s now playing with the big boys, and they want fast results. He will either be the star or the fall boy, but this is make-or-break for him…
C.K. Sample III, the only point you argued was that the Netscape product is not a rip. That’s fine, I give you that, and I apologise for that statement.
But I stand by absolutely everything else I said. Your service is a social bookmarking site, is it not? You’re paying for top users. That’s ridiculous.
If your service is good enough, they’ll come, in time. If it’s fun to submit stories, and there is a community that will embrace those stories, then you won’t have to pay for people to use it. (I’m just putting things into perspective for you - you ARE paying for users.)
What a stupid idea. And, I’m sorry, but an OBVIOUS sign of failure.
All of this “people doing what they love” crap just does not apply to this space. These people aren’t bloggers. They are not writers. They are people with enough time on their hands to submit hundreds of stories (read: links) per day.
Submit the Craiglist ad. You’ll save a bunch of money. Or, and in the style of Calcanis’s brilliant mind, why not pay everyone $1 per non-dupe story submitted? (Dumb, I know, but no different.)
Sorry of I’m being too harsh, but this kind of stupidity cannot go unnoticed.
CK, did you REALLY just try to put forth the notion that 24,000 registrations is somehow impressive given the fact that you hijacked a 12 million monthly uniques userbase to launch the ripoff, and accompanied it with a Calacanis P.T. Barnum media extravaganza?
Soulless? Ouch.
Paul, I strongly disagree that it is a stupid idea.
I’ve been blogging since 1999. I love blogging. It’s fun to submit stories to my blog. It’s fun to have readers who respond to what I write. Nevertheless, when Jason and Weblogs, Inc. called me up five years later and offered to start paying me to do what I was already doing on my own for free, I jumped at the chance. It wasn’t just about the money (though making money is nice). It was also about the community and launching off from my little Mac blog that had a nice enough following for a small blog to blogging for The Unofficial Apple Weblog, where I had a larger audience where more people saw what I was writing and took value from it.
With this move, we’re not paying for users of the site. Just like Weblogs, Inc. / Gawker / [Insert Blog Network Here] isn’t paying every single blogger out there. We’re paying for leaders in the space who have some insight into what makes a good story, and these leaders will help guide new users in how to find good stories and how to use the system through their actions.
Several of the Weblogs, Inc bloggers were originally participant fans of our blogs, commenting on stories and adding value to the system. They made themselves visible to us not by posting “First!” in the comments to our blog posts, but by actually showing that they had value to add to the site and the experience.
We’re not going to offer this gig to people who have just submitted the most stories or pay people a dollar to avoid dupes. That’s not the point of this idea. We’re going to look for the people who have the insight and editorial sense to pick the right stories and to find stories that the community will find interesting. Not everyone can do that and do that well.
Todd: yes, I did and I stand by it… although I wouldn’t characterize it the way you just did.
Its shocking what lengths to educated people can go to popularise something. Where is the thinking involved in this stupid proposal.
C.K., you’re misunderstood about what you’re paying for. The top users on digg are not top users because of their editorial sense, because of a skill they have acquired. They simply are the top users because of the amount of stories they submit.
You think you’re paying for talent. You are not. I urge you to look into this a little more, before you guys make complete fools of yourselves.
I provided a well enough explanation as to how users on digg become top users, and why they stay there. I suggest you read it again.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” — Mahatma Gandhi
Remember that Jason Calacanis figured out how to turn blogging into a $1M/year business with Google Adsense. I’m sure WIN is earning much more now that it’s got AOL’s ad sales behind it. This was when everyone thought “blogging isn’t a real business.” Who’s laughing all the way to the bank, now?
You can all laugh at his latest proposal now, but in two years, how many folks are going to be saying, “Gee, I wish I took Jason up on the paid Netscape.com offer two years ago.” Don’t miss the opportunity the second time around.
It is going to take a lot more than $1000/month to get me to jump ship on digg. I honestly don’t know that you could put a price on it. The people that use digg are where the real value is for me.
Mike, I think you’re right about AOL’s dissatisfaction with their new netscape beta. Their Alexa stats seem to provide support for your assertion as well. You can see the blip in June from when they released the beta:
http://www.alexa.com/data/deta.....tscape.com
Remember that Jason Calacanis figured out how to turn blogging into a $1M/year business with Google Adsense.
Uh, except that never actually happened like that. Taking your best day ever and annualizing it does not make you a $1m a year business. Not that Weblogs Inc. wasn’t a great company, but no one who knows anything was laughing about building websites and selling ads on them. That’s what a lot of people who blog or comment on this site have been doing for years.
in two years, how many folks are going to be saying, “Gee, I wish I took Jason up on the paid Netscape.com offer two years ago.”
Well at least I’ve already had one belly laugh today, and it’s only 10am.
Dossy - that’s funny but come to think of it, a lot of stupid ideas became millions if not billions of dollars worth.
A million dollar worth of assets is better than a million lines of bashing…
Netscape has a website? Since when? Didn’t they go out of business years ago?
Huh.
Scott Karp at publishing 2.0 has a very different take on 2 things:
1) He says the netscape play as still having a chance at ‘winning’ by focusing on ‘average people’
2) He says we really shouldn’t be hyping digg as a social media ‘revolution’ - its just a different group of editors (which Mike admits to above)
More on my post here
AOL is the Lycos of 1999. Too much money to spend but no clou about marketing. I wonder how a big media company like TW can have such an amateur management.
There are hundreds of ways to clone digg better, but instead they clone it 100% and create an amateur landing page (see Netscape.com).
I am not even talking about the international Netscape sites, which are an absolute mess and embarrassing.
Your quote “It is going to take a lot more than $1000/month to get me to jump ship on digg.” has basically confirmed Mark Devlin’ joke in the comments above, and you are basically negotiating the price now.
Maybe your banking on that your pseudo declaration of allegiance to Digg might raise the price, or get a ‘under the counter’ counteroffer from Digg.
I say let’s wait and see how this plays out…it can really go either way.
@ Re: BloodJunkie
Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough with the sentence that followed that one, but no I am not looking to negotiate anything. I can’t imagine a number which would make me want to jump ship on digg and at the same time be a sound investment for AOL.
I don’t believe AOL can buy their way to a successful socially driven content site.
$1000.. not bad, i’ll just post at both sites!
Gee Netscape has to find something that it can be successful at and not be a copycat.
LOL!
Have you seen reddit’s logo today?
There’s also a top story saying the founders are leaving to join Netscape, but I have a feeling that this is sarcasm
Very pathetic Netscape!
“Maybe your banking on that your pseudo declaration of allegiance to Digg might raise the price, or get a ‘under the counter’ counteroffer from Digg.”
An under the counter offer? BloodJunkie is not a voluntary employee at digg. He’s a member, a user, a contributor. You don’t pay for users, unless you’re Netscape, it would seem.
The whole idea is ludicrous. All of this paid blogging stuff (and there’s nothing wrong with that) certainly has blurred the lines, and when you reach the point when you’re willing to pay for members, it makes me wonder when they’ll start paying for readers!
You know, the $1 per submission idea should be gold to Calcanis. $1,000 will buy you 1,000 submissions.
The $1000.00 play might be a little tasteless.
Regarding Netscape versus Digg, content is also quite different.
To the risk of getting snide comments, I do submit my ‘Serge the Concierge’ blog posts on ‘Netscape’ (about 20 so far, I believe).
I do get readers to my blog from it.
Most of my posts are Food and Travel related which do not really fit on Digg.
One of the issues with all these ‘news’ portal, Newsvine, NowPublic, Netscape and others is they are competing for attention with many other outlets.
I would give it more time to see how things unfold.
I know that patience is not an american virtue but it is often useful.
Serge
Biz:
http://www.njconcierges.com
Blog:
http://www.sergetheconcierge.com
I think it’s great that active members in a community can be paid for their contributions, especially if the contributions generate revenue. This is no different than hiring a writer to write stories for your site.
The active members of Digg who represent a significant portion of the traffic generating submissions should get a cut of the pie. Consider ad revenue sharing on submitted stories, or a plain and simple monthly PayPal dump (the Calacanis method), or based on number of merits, (.05 a digg) on your stories.
Haha, anyways, I think it’s great that Calacanis recognizes the importance of active participation. Who cares if Netscape is an injured uncle of a company, and who cares if they succeed? I don’t understand why people would be so pessimistic about the entire affair. Is it because you weren’t offered money?
Why is this such a big deal? Weblogs Inc was built on paying people to post. Why not experiment here?
Paul, I’m not misundertanding what you’re saying, but I think you’re misunderstanding what we mean when we say “top” users. This isn’t like we’re just going to look at a user and go “Hey, cool you posted 400 stories. You’re in!” We’re actually going to evaluate what type of stories, how many, how many made it to the top, etc and make a judgment call on whether the person is a good fit for the position or not.
As Jason points out, the offer to apply is open to the top 50 or so users of any of these sites, but we’re limiting the number of Navigators to a dozen or so hires. Not all applicants will be accepted. We will most likely find that people closer to #50 than to #1 on the top list of users on these sites are actually the ones with the talent and magic we need.
To start paying top users of social Web sites diminishes what social sites are. It is no longer about community at that point. Suddenly, everyone is trying to become an employee.
If I was a Netscape member, I would not care much what links an employee is finding to post, because that is not even what the Netscape site is about! Talk about a loss of vision.
It then becomes an editorial process, and the other contributors no longer matter. In fact, does it not then make sense, at that point, to cut contributions off altogether, leaving only the hired employees to post the links?
It is then not a social site. What a mess. Who the hell pays Jason to come up with this crap?
How about creating success, instead of trying to buy it all the time?
Blong > I’m glad someone is choosing not to be as alarmist as the above article and is instead seeing sense.
I’m not sure how many of Digg’s top users are aware that, effectively, they are working for Digg for free. Perhaps the satisfaction of being a loyal user is enough for them, but when Digg is enjoying as much success and growth as they are, a warm feeling of satisfaction is an extremely low reward for providing what is essentially the cornerstone of Digg (links and activity). Digg and all socially-driven sites rely on their users. Whilst arguably the distribution of contribution is quite even, it’s way more skewed and way more public on Digg.
We have people submitting link upon link a day and amassing tens of thousands of dugg articles - that’s serious time spent in front of the screen.
Who knows if these people aren’t actually employed by Digg already, but for the massive contribution they make, there should be some kind of reward. It’s not like Digg is being run out of some 18-year old’s parent’s basement - it’s a company with employees.
If Digg feels it necessary to retain users who have made a significant contribution to the company, then what is the problem?
If Netscape feels that it can reward users better for their time, then what is the problem?
People are acting as if Netscape is attempting to buy users. Incorrect. Netscape are looking to hire contributors.
C.K., in response to your last comment:
You’re then just using digg, and sites like it as a platform in which to scout for “talent”. If this were not a social site, it would make sense. But as everyone can post stories, you’re essentially paying for members, which I just can’t get over.
digg doesn’t have to pay for their members, and neither do you. If the site is good, it will generate a community. You will generate high-rollers. It’s only inevitable.
Jason’s offer is either a sign of failure, or a sign of extreme impatience. Neither is good.
One thing about the 24,000 registrations. At least half of them registered in order to complain about the new site (based on complaints they made).
I managed to land several stories on the main page, and the traffic was not that impressive (7,200 uniques) over a few days. I don’t think Netscape had much bulk to begin with.
You can tell there are barely any stories in the system.
yongfook:
These people are so active because, wait for it…they enjoy digg! They enjoy posting stories, and reading the communitie’s comments on those stories, and they have fun doing it.
It’s not a job, nor is it even a hobby. It’s a leisurely activity. Some of them might argue that they should be paying digg, for providing such a great service, that has got them hooked, and helped them to make lots of friends.
It is about community, people.
And contributors = users. They’re one in the same. Netscape ARE trying to buy users, they just don’t seem to realise it. To me, it’s just embarrassing.
As a former Netscape employee I find the entire episode embarrassing. It is just one more example of how AOL is just flailing. I’m sure Google is second guessing their big investment in AOL last year. Ouch!
Poor Jason. He has so much charisma. I feel sorry for the guy. Jason, don’t do this payout thing. I think it is time to give up on this experiment. I know you can think of a better, original idea.
AOL should have moved to broadband back when dial-up was going out of style. After the trouble I had cancelling AOL 8 years ago, they get what they deserve. And I’m with Duncan — I thought Netscape went out of business years ago? I guess AOL + Netscape = -2 (the death of two companies).
I’m all for competition and innovation, not imitation… If a company wants to compete with Digg, then innovate - don’t copy them and then offer to “buy” their users! When a company pays the users to use their service or product, what’s that say about them? It says that people will only tolerate it for compensation…
This is kind of funny and goes to my upcoming post on “Hippy-crites” - for months I have seen post after post upset that the mainstream content companies are taking advantage of everyday people to get new content which they make money from. “User Generated Content” which fed the coffers of the companies and left most people who contributed the poorer for it (supposedly). Now that someone is actually offering to pay the best and brightest, some people think this is wrong too.
What is wrong with getting paid for doing the work you love to do? In my world that is the end goal of each day - to have my livlihood aligned with that which makes my heart sing. Many people have gotten their jobs as a result of passions they pursued (um, like major sports, actors, writers, open source developers and numerous others)
Kudos to Jason for being brave enough to put this out there - experimenting and taking risks is the only way to success. Will Digg respond in kind? Will there be a bidding war to retain the top talent? Do I hear $1250?
I think it is inevitable that there will be a bidding war, the only question is whether or not it will create a new Tulip Craze or whether cooler heads will prevail…
Wonder what the TOS for that deal would be? It would be simple enough to double submit the stories under an alias AND walk away with $1k for doing it…
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