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.

Perhaps the concept is to do what Newsvine is doing in letting folks post their stories on the site and collect the revenue from those ads. 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?

I sent this internal note to a bunch of folks at AOL earlier today... sort of an update on the state of Netscape and what we've learned about the 1, 19, and 80%. After thinking about it for 27 seconds I realized that this is the kind of stuff I used to post to my blog and i figured I would share with y'all.

I have to keep reminding myself that the best feedback we got at Weblogs, Inc. was when we talked about our company publicly on my blog. When you get to a big company you tend to be more closed because people smack you down just because your big. I've been getting smacked down since I've gotten to AOL as a "sellout" or "big company guy," but I'm not going to let that change how I run my businesses. I beleive in transparency and the fact that the more you put out there the more you get back.

Sure, some folks will spin what I say as "AOL senior exec says BLAH BLAH BLAH," but frankly that's a small price to pay for gaining the trust of the community and the good advice they give you when you open up to them.

best j



Team AOL,

For those of you not watching the drama unfold in the social news space for the past couple of days, there has a been a big shift in people's thinking about us paying the top social bookmarkers for the 1-3 hours a day they put into sites like digg, delicious, and Netscape. Two months ago we were "destroying the space" by paying the top 1% of the user base, now we're considered the savvy ones who recognized that there is a real difference between the 1%, 19%, and 80% of the user populations (creatives, contributors, and consumers).

At its most basic what we've learned is that the top 1% of these community members deserve to get compensated for their time, and if you do compensate them they will be 1,000% more active and appreciative. Paying them isn't about the money as much as it is the recognition, and they are so psyched to be recognized that they will really go overboard in thanking you with very high-quality work. The Netscape Navigators are doing a phenomenal job of not only putting in good stories, but also of building a community. They talk to the users via site mail and explain to them how to participate. They let them know when they've made a mistake and how to fix it. They are mentors and leaders in the best sense of those words.

The 1% brings in the 19%, and that 20% bring in the masses/consumption class (the 80%).

Of course, Netscape was an established brand when we converted it. So, we had the the consuming masses (the 80%) and we hired the 1% (the creatives). What we're really working on right now is training and inspiring the middle class: the 19% we call the contributors. The folks who vote, comment, add friends, and send messages on the site. These folks are the most active portion of the masses and they are new to the social news process in many cases. We have about 1/3rd of those folks trained and we should build out our "middle-class" by the end of the year from what I can see.

I suspect this process will be the case for many of AOL's (and Yahoo's) user-driven projects. You'll have the masses by default, but not the creative and contributing classes. Those are the two you'll have to build.

So, I'm wondering if the folks on AIM pages or Uncut are seeing something similar and if similar strategies might work. Maybe Uncut should hire the top 20 video producers on YouTube to work for us? Maybe AIM Pages should hire the top 20 folks on MySpace to be part of our "leadership program" (or something like that). Have them train the user base and give feedback to the developers.

Some folks claim it's desperate to have to pay the 1%. That's pure *spin* by people who don't want to pay other people for their hard work. These folks are the life-blood of these systems and paying them isn't desperate--it's smart. Also, paying them does not stop other folks from want to get involved from getting involved. The folks being paid have obligations they have to meet, and the other 99% can come and go as they please.

The 1% are not getting paid for exactly the same things as the 99%--which was Yochi Benkler's big complaint about our Navigator program (he said it made the other 99% of folks into suckers). It turns out that the public understands that the Navigators have more to do than an average user (i.e. killing spam, getting rid of duplicate stories, helping users), and that they are obligated to show up for "work" every day. That last part sets the difference--the 1% we pay are obligated and the 99% are not obligated.

Anyway, just some thoughts for a Sunday.

best j

ps - here is the latest story giving us credit... i knew the tide would turn.
ps2 - votes and stories submitted broke records every 2-3 days over the last two weeks--and Netscape's web pages are growing again. Mission *almost* accomplished. (the mission for me is to double Netscape's traffic from the bottom out weeks of late August/ early September (when we lost the email users).

The word is getting out about the first 10 Netscape Navigators (people who took "the offer" to become paid bookmarkers). You can see their photos on the right hand column at www.netscape.com.

Here are the basic details, we hired:

1. Three of the top 12 DIGG users
2. The #1 user on Newsvine
3. The #1 user on Reddit
4. We hired a bunch of folks from Weblogs, Inc. (since we know and love them :-)

It is important to note that this is all an experiment. No one knows for sure if this model of "paying people for work" us gonna work. I mean, it's crazy to think that people could be paid to do a job and do it with integrity--that's just crazy talk. :-)

Seriously, the fact is that the top 10 users on DIGG are responsible for 30% of the front page stories on DIGG. That's 3% of total front page stories each!!! Think about that for a second... the top 10 users of DIGG do 3% of the work each--that is stunning. They get paid nothing but they are responsible for 3% of the total content on the home page. Wow. Like WOW, WOW, WOW!

My hope is that the first 10 Navigators do such an amazing job that we can extend our offer out to other members of the DIGG, NEWSVINE, and REDDIT top 10.

HOW CAN YOU BECOME THE NEXT NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR?
Folks have been asking me the best way to get a paid bookmarking job with us. The best thing you can do to get on our radar and have a chance of getting a gig is to participate in the new Netscape. Of course, being in the top ten on DIGG/Delicious/Reddit/Newsvine is also great. However, I'd also like to see more of these folks participating on Netscape as well.

... and you thought it would be a slow summer. :-)

UPDATE1: There is a story on DIGG about the new Navigators here. The DIGG community is supporting the three users who have left DIGG for Netscape!
UPDATE2: There is a Netscape story about the new Navigators here.

When Brian and I started Weblogs, Inc. the idea of paying bloggers--heck, even making money from blogging--was considered offensive to many. Blogging was, as the case was stated, a highly personal activity that should not be trivialized by the forces of commerce and greed. I don't have a complicated relationship with money or capitalism: I love them both and see them as simply as fuel and the process by which fuel is produced. Money to me means time, time means quality, and quality means success.

Quality. That single factor is what determines the winners in our business. Google's search is of higher quality than Yahoo, MSN, and even AOL's. Because of that Google wins. Engadget is of higher quality than Gizmodo and they are ranked first and second place in their space. Similarly, LifeHacker is of better quality than DownSquad today and as a result they are ranked one and two in their space. For background, my friend Nick Denton of Gawker fame owns Gizmodo and LifeHacker, and we (AOL) own Engadget and DownloadSquad. My point here is that in order for us to beat LifeHacker we need to increase our quality, and in order for Gizmodo to ever beat Engadget they need to increase their quality. The only way to do that is an investment of time. Time equals money, so they both need an investment on a cash basis.

Today we have around 200 bloggers on the Weblogs, Inc. payroll. Two years later John Battelle took the idea and extended it in a blog repping business. Om Malik has raised funding and stolen a Red Herring reporter, and even the nascent vlogging space is in full-blown talent war mode. What was foreboden three years ago is commonplace today.

Talented people's time in our society is primarily engaged with money. As a result we are doubling the staff of DownloadSquad and we've increased the rate we are paying our bloggers to $10 a post on that blog (much more for features). As a result I'm sure our traffic will double over the next three months--in fact I will guarantee that it will happen. Money does change everything.

Talent wins, and talent needs to get paid. I love paying talented people so they can sleep well at night doing what they love. That's my biggest joy in business: gettin' people paid.

Before launching the new Netscape I realized that Reddit, NewsVine, Delicious, and DIGG were all driven by a small number of highly-active users. I wrote a blog post about what drives these folks to do an hour to three hours a day of work for these sites which are not paying them for their time. In other words, they are volunteering their services. The response most of these folks gave back to me were that they enjoyed sharing the links they found and that they got satisfaction out of being an "expert" or "leader" in their communities.

Excellent... excellent (say that in a Darth Vadar/Darth Calacanis voice for extra impact).

That is exactly what bloggers told Brian and I three years ago when we started. Given that, I have an offer to the top 50 users on any of the major social news/bookmarking sites:

We will pay you $1,000 a month for your "social bookmarking" rights. Put in at least 150 stories a month and we'll give you $12,000 a year. (note: most of these folks put in 250-400 stories a month, so that 150 baseline is just that--a baseline).

Now, this offer is going to get a big response I know, so we're going to have to limit to a dozen or so folks. However, I'm absolutely convinced that the top 20 people on DIGG, Delicious, Flickr, MySpace, and Reddit are worth $1,000 a month and if we're the first folks to pay them that is fine with me--we will take the risk and the arrows from the folks who think we're corrupting the community process (is there anyone out there who thinks this any more?!).

We're gonna identify this people in our system as "Netscape Navigators," and they will work with our full-time "Netscape Anchors" to build a community. I see a day when we have the eight full-time Anchors working with two dozen Navigators to keep the site fresh and clean (hmm... I think I need a better choice of words here).

The concept of "free" content producers, which I think WIRED called crowdsourcing, is going to be a short-lived joke. A loophole in the content business that will be closed by savvy startups which identify the top 5% of the audience and buy their time.

If we're (DIGG, Delicious, Flickr, Reddit, MySpace, Netscape, etc) are going to make businesses out of this space we should share the wealth.

As we say in Brooklyn: everyone's gotta eat.*

* Note: Everything I know about business I learned in Brooklyn. I learned this one from my father while at his restaurant when I asked him why we didn't just buy our own jukebox and instead split the money with the "goodfella" who brought the machine in, changed the records every month, and split the quarters with us. "Everyone's gotta eat" he told me. It wasn't the last time I would hear that expression, and there are many variations of it that the 'fellas in the neighborhood would use. "Can I get a taste?" or "I need a taste" were two of many variations on the theme. This expression was a the humble--or demanding--way of saying you wanted a cut of the action (money).

Note 2: One of my favorite Knicks of all time, Latrell Sprewell, famously used a variation of this saying by stating that he had a family to feed when turning down a $10M+ deal from the Timberwolves. They wouldn't give him a better deal and he sat out last year--perhaps his final quality year as a basketball player. This is an important lesson for the talent out there: your first offer is usually your best offer. I'm just saying... :-)

Seth replies to my "Newsvine/Squidoo doing the MLM thing" post.

Seth says "Neal is correct. This isn't MLM, not by any definition (not that there's anything wrong with that.) You are entitled to your opinion, whether I like it or not, but your facts are wrong."

Squidoo's email offers:

"2. Refer a friend, get $5. When someone you've referred earns her first $15, you and she BOTH get an extra $5. Find out more here: http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/refer"

Wikipedia defines MLM as:

"In a typical multi-level marketing or network marketing arrangement, individuals associate with a parent company as an independent contractor and are compensated based on their sales of products or service (as well as the sales achieved by those they bring into the business).

I rest my case.

Seth does say he doesn't have a problem with MLM, so I'm not trying to pull a "gotch," nor can I. I'm just saying I don't like the talent that MLM programs draw.

Being the brilliant marketing maven Seth is I'm sure he loves MLM stuff (of course Seth is the same guy who defended the Buzz companies who's contractors were involved in deception back when).

As a publisher I *hate* MLM programs (schemes) because they draw the wacky people of the world. I'm all about the long tail, we based our business on it, however you get way down that tail and things can get really scary. There are a lot of freaks at the end of the long tail. The best producers don't need to play MLM games because they can command straight up fees. Why would they produce stuff for contingent/MLM compensation? I don't see it. In fact, Seth had a post yesterday about folks not being motivated by money.

Seth gives a couple of Squidoo sites saying "There is nothing on gizmodo or about like this, is there?"

http://www.squidoo.com/teajunkie/
http://www.squidoo.com/reymysterio/
http://www.squidoo.com/moleskines/

Nope, you won't find niche blogs/publications about one brand of notepad or individual wrestlers. However I'm sure there are some solid tea publications out there (anyone know the leading tea pubs?).

The problem with hyper-niche pubs is that they don't change enough and the readers don't need them often enough. Now, I'm sure Squidoo can make a nice business out of getting tens of thousands of people to make hundreds of thousands of these--provided that they are indexed well into the Google. However, it is doubtful that these tiny pubs will ever make any serious money for the folks who build them. Of course, the folks building these are doing it out of passion in large part (I guess).

I'm fascinated by Squidoo, it's a great mashup of a bunch of models (Wikipedia, About.com, Webogs, Inc)... I'm just don't think MLM stuff will work.

Update: Hugh's take on all this:

Yesterday we had a good time playing with Newsvine. What did we learn?

1. Newsvine's interface is really complicated--it takes a good hour or two of playing to figure it out.
   
2. It takes 3-5 votes to get a story to land on a category page.
3. It takes 5-10 votes to get on the TOS page (TOS = top of service for those of you who don't work for a major portal :-)
4. You don't add friends on Newsvine, you "watch" people. Not sure I like that term--feels like being a stalker.
   
5. The fact that they have a license to the AP is really cool because they can run really nice, big photos--DIGG/Delicious ain't got no photos
6. 
7. The Conversation Tracker (image one, right) is a neat feature that allows you to quickly popup an AJAX box that shows you activity on stories you've submitted (i.e. if someone comments or votes on your story).
   
8. The Read Article button is a good innovation since most folks on DIGG don't know when they click on a headline or comment link if they are leaving the site or not. On Newsvine you're not leaving the site *unless* you hit that button.
9. Featured Writers is a good box because it rewards folks for being active, and let's face it people are driven by two things in this space: recognition and affiliation (their ain't no compensation).
   
10. Newsvine has a really bizarre MLM (multi-level marketing) scheme where they will split revenue with you for your articles and your friends articles. It's really complicated and it will never work. They will drop it I'm sure.
11. Overall I give the site a B. They've added some nice features to the socail bookmarking space, and if they can clean up the site a little bit they will have a real winner on their hands.

Questions to folks in yesterday's Newsvine UFG (Unauthorized Focus Group):

1. How long do you think it will take an average user to understand what is going on at the site?
2. What do you think are the best 2-3 features of the site?
3. How would you compare the Newsvine experience to DIGG, Delicious, and/or Ma.gnolia.com?
4. What would you change about the site?
5. What are the worst features/biggest issues with the site?
   

OK, today's UFG is Ma.gnolia.com. My user account is:

http://ma.gnolia.com/people/jasoncalacanis

Got the note below from Squidoo today. I hate this MLM (multi-level marketing)/referrer program stuff. I know it works, but it feels icky to me. We thought about all these models when we started WIN and found that you're better off finding the best of the best and paying them well to make a "lens" of the web.

Quality folks don't do the MLM stuff. MLM stuff draws the low-rent, scammers of the world (think: the folks you know who join those viatim cults).

I love Seth (I would invest in NASDAQ: SGOD), and I think Squidoo has About.com potential, but I think it's not gonna work as it is structured today because there will be too many "experts" in each vertical, and the truth is that most folks are not really experts. Less is more. No one on Squidoo will do a better job covering gadgets than Engadget, stocks than TheStreet.com, or Hollywood gossip than Defamer. Real experts command real money, contingent money draws the weak experts.

[ Note: I know Seth's response will be that the best lens creators will be voted up, but the truth is that the best lens creators will never *show* up because they will be getting paid by folks like About.com, Weblogs, Inc. and MSM publications. ]

Here is the note from Squidoo today:

Great news!

Every penny earned so far in the Squidoo public beta test has been donated to charity. That's thousands of dollars for three
great organizations: The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Room to Read, and The Acumen Fund. Congratulations.

But now... it's time to start paying YOU. From this point forward any royalties your lenses earn are well and truly yours. (And we're
backdating the start of the first pay period to March 1, 2006). Find out more about how you get paid.

So now what? Three things you should know:

1. We just introduced a powerful new eBay module. Highlight relevant products. Promote your own auctions. Share items you're bidding on. Get a commission on every item sold.

2. Refer a friend, get $5. When someone you've referred earns her first $15, you and she BOTH get an extra $5. Find out more here: http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/refer

3. Our new partnership with CafePress brings lensmasters and shopkeepers together. Get unique new lens content from the popular CafePress module.

Thanks, and let us know what you think!

The SquidTeam
Seth, Corey, Megan, Heath and Gil

OK, anyone playing with Newsvine.com today please do me a favor and vote for each of my stories and add a comment: http://jmc.newsvine.com/

I want to see how many votes it takes to get your story to the top level of the site (right now it seems that 5-10 votes makes you a top story... wow, compare that to the 50 it takes to get on DIGGS home page).

I've only gotten like 10-25 visitors from the stories that are making it to the top level, so while it is easier to get to the top level the payoff is nothing--right now.

OK, a bunch of us are hanging out in the Tech and Entertainment sections of Newsvine right now. I added my YouTube story and it has five votes and I've been promoted to the featured Writers box.

Here are the folks I've found in the system already:
http://alexander.newsvine.com
http://jmc.newsvine.com
http://cafemama.newsvine.com
http://nonsensor.newsvine.com
http://modulo26.newsvine.com
http://meskill.newsvine.com
http://toddwc.newsvine.com
http://wilwheaton.newsvine.com
http://jairob.newsvine.com/
http://albertob.newsvine.com/
http://peterrojas.newsvine.com/
http://jandrade.newsvine.com/
http://dcharti.newsvine.com/
http://willyvolk.newsvine.com/
http://doctorparadox.newsvine.com/
http://joannelutynec.newsvine.com/

I'm playing with Newsvine today... trying to figure out how it works.

If anyone wants to come play with me my account:
http://jmc.newsvine.com/

some news I've posted (post some comments/votes!!!)

http://jmc.newsvine.com/_news/2006/03/30/151226-youtube-cleaning-up-its-actsome-free-advice
http://jmc.newsvine.com/_news/2006/03/30/151243-time-to-start-a-business-or-not-the-jason-calacanis-weblog

What do you guys think of Newsvine?
Please post your thoughts and account names in the comments so we can all hook up over there.