Subvert And Profit is a service that lets users pay to get their sites on Digg (and more recently StumbleUpon).
Unlike Pay Per Post, the company doesn’t waste a lot of time trying to spin their business into something socially acceptable. People pay them to pollute big social sites and get traffic, and they’re ok with being slammed for that. As long as they make money. The whole operation is complete with founder pseudonyms (Ragnar Danneskjold, Vasili Taleniekov), proxied whois records, and a clandestine PayPal Account.
The service is bringing in the new year with a new pricing model. In ‘08, Diggs and Stumbles will be increased to $2 per vote. Users will be paid $1 for their votes. You can also earn 20% of the earnings of any friends you refer, and 10% of the cost of advertisements from any advertisers you refer.
And they are also expanding into YouTube.
“Crowd Hacking”
Getting articles on the front page of Digg has gotten harder as the community has grown, however. Digg’s algorithms have become more resistant to the same groups of users voting stories, so getting even 50 Diggs is no guarantee of success. Although, S&P claims 9,000 users internationally which they can spread the votes amongst. They also ask users to vote for a random group of other stories to obfuscate their operation. S&P previously claimed a 2/3 success rate.
Assuming it takes 100 votes to ensure a story hits the front page and that it will pull in 10,000 visitors, you’d be paying $0.02 per visitor; a rate comparable to low end remnant advertising. Articles could be much more effective, or not hit at all.
Next Stop, YouTube
While they have not yet revealed how they plan on subverting and profiting from YouTube, we can take some guesses based on Dan Ackerman’s infamous guest post on the subject. Dan’s viral suggestions included email lists, comments, views, blog embeds, and ratings. I imagine S&P’s strategy will center around paying their users to boost each of these.
However, getting big on YouTube is significantly harder than Digg or StumbleUpon. Front page featured videos are chosen by YouTube itself and pushing a video up the ranks in terms of views requires tens of thousands, not hundreds of user actions. I can only imagine their plans include outright view fraud to make the video “go viral”.
Still, I’m left wondering how much all this trouble is worth to advertisers. YouTube videos don’t easily drive traffic to a website, making them harder to audit than referral links from Digg or StumbleUpon. Also, at the end of the day you don’t know how much these services actually contributed to the success of your content. Any statements about the success of these operations come from their founders and are shrouded in promises of secrecy for their clients.
To be honest, is anyone surprised at this?
SO, now we need to figure out how to walk this line? Cause groups “working the system” like this are going to become more and more overt.
People pay to get their web video or site exposure. So what? YouTube is a commercial enterprise, Digg is a commercial enterprise. There is no expectation of an arena “unpolluted” by commercial messages on either site.
What’s the difference between this and what Dan Greenberg does with his company? Is this version considered bad and his good?
they’re both bad. and inevitable.
I don’t think writing about it helps
digg, stumbleupon and youtube created a market, subvert&profit was spawned to take advantage of that market.
it is neither bad nor good, it just *is* .. you take from it what you want, it’s just paid advertising.
the writers and editors of TC are unfortunately part of this ‘last generation’ of business/IT people who don’t understand new markets like this, and the redefinition of ‘advertising’ and social influence. They see PPP and S&P and are afraid, because they are making money in new areas not conceived 3 years ago even.
http://www.usersubmitter.com worked much better than this does for Digg, but I’m not sure if they’re still operating publicly. I tried both services against Digg, but didn’t find much value in having a flood of visitors read past my ads.
By the way, this whole post about them targeting YouTube isn’t news at all. They’re still going to use Digg and StumbleUpon, like anyone interested in having potentially more YouTube subscribers has already done. They’re not doing anything differently. In other words, they’re only announcing, ‘hey, you can link to YouTube in your Digg posts.’ (No shit.)
You took the bait.
As if this could adversely affect the quality of Digg in any way…
theit trick about youtube is the following, check this out (pretty smart) :
“Now, upcoming artists, amateur comedians, and video podcasters can have content pumped by over 9,000 Subvert and Profit crowdsourcers worldwide.
There are three easy steps:
1. Submit your video to YouTube.
2. Post the video to Digg or StumbleUpon.
3. Use Subvert and Profit to purchase votes for the Digg or StumbleUpon link.
We will provide that springboard of views to drive widespread organic traffic your way! With the traffic increase generated by a prominent position on Digg, your YouTube video could be the next Numa Numa Dance!”
source: http://subverta...ert-and-profit/
I heard Kevin Rose offered Subvert and Profit a cool $1 million to shut down, and they refused.
Hmmm,
I don’t get this. Is this legal in the US? This seem to me like “4G Spam”
@6 Chris:”its capitalism. There is demand for the service and people willing to pay for it. Let it happen.”
Fair enough mate, but that same invisible hand hopefully will make sites that want to maintain editorial intregrity find a way to block those sleazy shenanigans. Otherwise those capitialistic forces (all fine) will make said users look elsewhere.
@13 (Shawn):
“but that same invisible hand hopefully will make sites that want to maintain editorial intregrity find a way to block those sleazy shenanigans. Otherwise those capitialistic forces (all fine) will make said users look elsewhere.”
You just won the “you get it” award of the day. If there is demand and money to be made block those “sleazy shenanigans” then great. I hope someone will do it!
@josiah
Sorry, but if TC is “afraid” of this, then I join them. I’m no TC cheerleader, mind you, but if they come out against this, then I’m in their camp. As I said to Chris, yes, it’s a natural part of the ecosystem, but TC is showing journalistic integrity by exposing it, and I don’t think “afraid” has anything to do with it. (Lest you think I’m a shill for thses guys, I blasted them when they reported on controversial (gay/lesbian/ alternate sexuality wikipedia posts that came from google IPs). A lot of the stuff they report on slightly annoys me these days, but come on, most would say they are on the right side on this.
this is the equivalent of a PR (public relations, you google addicts) campaign in cyberspace
“first you get the money, then you get the powa”
now who said that?
@shawn: What would TechCrunch be “exposing” about Subvert and Profit, and how would it show journalistic integrity?
There will always be those who look for a quick way of achieving “success”, whether it’s sports, relationships or even… god forbid… the internet. I believe earned success is worth far more then cheated success… they will get their comings soon enough.
Jon
It’s amazing you’re writing about a service that knowingly has no positive value in anyway. Yet, you’re totally clueless as to the advent of the most positive impact on video since VHS because soon, everyone is going to get blip’d!
Subvert? Probably. Profit? That’s another issue…
Here’s a fun experiment: get an “advertising-supported” site that nobody is interested in Dugg and on the front-page for a few hours. You’ll get lots and lots of traffic…
…and then your advertisers are going to ask you why they served up 10,000 extra hits for the past week, but no click-thrus. Or why your apparent bounce-rate is a little under 90% now. Or any other assorted bitches that are a result of their now very f’d up statistics for your site.
Probably a lot less damage occurs to an e-commerce site, or a site selling a service, though, but I don’t expect Diggers to be fooled — if a site is awful, it’s awful, and they’ll just hit the back-button and write something pretty negative in the comments section about it.
I know I do.
Everyone plays the angles. What a pity !
I encourage you to report the item to PayPal’s Acceptable Use folks.
https://www.pay...x_frame-outside
Interactive Times Square Sign Will Show Americans’ Messages of Thanks to the Troops
“Operation New Year’s Eve” Text Messaging Campaign Launches This Weekend 12/29/07 – 01/01/08
NEW YORK -Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the nation’s first and largest nonpartisan organization for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is taking part in “Operation New Year’s Eve,” an exciting holiday campaign that lets Americans send text messages in support of U.S. troops to a sign in Times Square.
Supporters can send text messages to 94444 (keyword ‘care’ space ‘then your message’). All messages will be collected by “Operation New Year’s Eve” and broadcast on a digital LED screen at the top of 4 Times Square, the tallest building in New York’s Times Square.
More than a million people are expected to gather in Times Square for the News Year’s Eve celebration, with an additional 50 million Americans watching at home. The messages will be broadcast worldwide via a live video stream at http://www.oper...newyearseve.org or http://www.textthanks.org.
Sign Lab Media and The Durst Organization are proudly sponsoring “Operation New Year’s Eve,” in association with Fountainhead.com, who designed and delivered the technology for the event. $.99 will be charged to users’ phones for each text message sent. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).
“Operation New Year’s Eve’ provides Americans with a fantastic way to show support for U.S. service members serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s critical that amidst all the celebration, we stop to think about the men and women who are away from their families and in harm’s way,” said Paul Rieckhoff, IAVA Executive Director. “We are grateful to The Durst Organization, Sign Lab Media and Fountainhead.com for sponsoring such an innovative campaign to help Americans say thank you.”
Rob MacMillan, CEO of Sign Lab Media, is producing this historic event. A former Reservist, he intends to draw upon the Internet and social networks to lead the charge. “This is a profoundly simple, yet powerful way for all Americans to connect with the men and women serving overseas.”
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is the nation’s first and largest group for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A non-profit and nonpartisan organization, IAVA represents more than 70,000 veteran members and civilian supporters in all 50 states. For more information, please contact : Bill Nestel, Sign Lab Media (514) 543-6929 or zumabill@aol.com.
The youtube video should have a ranking system to vote the favorite video rather than commenting section which have mostly spam posts.
Anyone who REALLY analyzes the current topics that make the Digg homepage and Reddit as well as those that become extremely popular on YouTube, can see the effects of ….
Top Members using clout (this has also worked for TechCrunch and Lifehacker)
Videos by Music Celebrities & Comedians getting big pushes from PR firms
Ron Paul’s social networking backers voting in full force
These sites have not been truly democratic in a long time and just like search engine result pages are being influenced by search engine optimization, social networking sites will be manipulated by innovative and powerful promoters seeking to maximize their profit.
After using social sites like digg and stumbleupon and getting a fair amount of traffic from both I’m convinced that creating endless copies of the same content is the business plan of some. Sites like digg and stumbleupon have limited protection against repeated content and the influx of new users prevents any kind of social editorial control.
@13 (Chris)
“You just won the “you get it” award of the day. If there is demand and money to be made block those “sleazy shenanigans” then great. I hope someone will do it!”
The key is moderation. It works on irc, it works for webforums, and it will work in the blogosphere.
@17 (Jon)
“There will always be those who look for a quick way of achieving “success”, whether it’s sports, relationships or even… god forbid… the internet. I believe earned success is worth far more then cheated success… they will get their comings soon enough.”
integrity, consistency, and sustainability, that’s the key to long term success. The problem with information markets is that the good AND the negative move rapidly.
I am loosing more and more respect for Techcrunch and Arlington. People, including some VCs, are now openly talking about how he has written for them, and a lot of companies he is writing about are just crap; some he has invested in with small disclaimers — many have failed. Take a look at the so called Crunchies as an example. What a shame
Apparently there is no honor among rats either. First Arlington puts up a duche (Dan Greenberg) from Stanford to tell all how to cheat the system. I get to call him a duche, because I went to Stanford, and people like him are a scorn. Then Arlington is so effective at pomping up this duche as a video expert that the duche actually shows up on TV and puntificates non-sense like a scared rat. What does Michael A do? He advertises it on his site.
Now Arlington is complaining and trying to get rid of the competition, while playing holier than thou!!! Is he trying to corner the “push marketing” sector? Why such double standards — when it comes to other pay per post site or fake endorsement sites?
Look at the votes on Crunchies, again. Many of the companies listed there are in private beta! but magically they get a lot of votes. Others have incomplete or non-functioning sites. And many are connected to friendly hidden sources.
Now a duche like Greenberg wouldn’t try to game the Crunchies (not 1/100 as sophisticated as Digg — the logos are not connected to any links!!!), now would he? No trust and honor among rats?
It is a real shame… I used to really like techcrunch
Its market forces.
How is what Subvert any different from other PR or advertising business’s ?
End of the day its another way to advertise and like somebody said alot of voting on those sites are based around “friends voting for each other ” so you end up with rubbish on the front pages anyhow.
———
http://www.xenbet.com
I sale Digg vote $500.
Doesn’t this argue for some FOAF-based filtering layer to site recommendations? Sounds like another Facebook API, or at least another feature set for Stumbleupon, Digg and others.
Well done to TechCrunch for reporting this, even though they don’t agree with the methods etc used by this company.
Good journalism
Well, for all those arguing the usefulness of this ’service’ and why would anyone want to use it: I signed up a while ago and I used to get an ‘assignment’ almost every other day; this means that there are enough people using it anyway.
I guess this article is going to make the 9000 count jump up to more subscribers.
Unreal. They removed my initial comment.
What a bunch of babies.
http://www.yout...try=b4NbOdeOGM4
how many of these 2007 top 10 were helped by services like the one in the post.
It would be interesting to take poll among TechCrunch readers for their picks on which ones were given a push.
Any one care to take a stab at it?
Tempting. You’d think we’d get on Digg & StumbleUpon without help but so far we don’t seem to have made much of an impact.
Tempting. You’d think we’d get on Digg & StumbleUpon without help but so far we don’t seem to have made much of an impact.
Well done to TechCrunch for reporting this, even though they don’t agree with the methods etc used by this company.
Good journalism
It’s amazing you’re writing about a service that knowingly has no positive value in anyway. Yet, you’re totally clueless as to the advent of the most positive impact on video since VHS because soon, everyone is going to get blip’d!