I ended the first part of this post stating that indeed a real long tail is possible even for revenue sharing with end users getting a slice of the big cake. That's it: sharecroppers able to effectively get the returns of their work and contributions.
YouTube recently announced a form of revenue sharing and there are some examples of social shopping out there, but what about communities? Have they to be kept completely free?
Now I want to present an innovative service born today by the partnership between Google and Dada that is trying to change the rules of this game for communities of users and inside social networks (the kind of service most affected by traffic and content explosion lately).
Dada is an international leading provider of community and entertainment services both for the web and mobile devices and their mission is "To offer everyone, anytime and anywhere the freedom to discover, share and express themselves". Dada's offer is quite articulated so it could be useful to recall their three major complimentary products: Life (social networking, blogs, video and forums), Love (dating) and Mobi (mobile entertainment) with a total customer base of 7 million users across 15 countries.
Yesterday I visited Dada headquarters to meet Paolo Barberis (Dada President). We discussed their recent acquisitions and partnerships (Nominalia, Upoc Networks, Register.it, Tipic and Blogo.it), their strategy for the future and new services.
Paolo, even being one of the rare winner of the italian web panorama, is also an energetic, passionate and inspiring entrepreneur. He introduced me to Dada friend$, the new social advertising service Dada is launching today in beta and one that is deeply related to the sharecropping and revenue sharing topic.
The idea is quite simple (but you know simple ideas are the ones often producing strongest effects): use your content and friends inside the Dada.net community to extend you social network, make new acquaintances and get back part of the money.
To this goal, Dada signed an important deal with Google to allow their users to easily add Google ads on every content they generate inside the community: blogs, profile, personal space, photos, videos, forum. As a plus, textual adds will be also placed on the same contents produced by users that you invited, monetizing not only quality information but also the ability to involve new friends virally. The access is by invitation only.
I would like to remark a few points here:
- This is one of first global examples in which the cake is shared with every single user. Not only top diggers, top contributers, selected groups, etc.
- Blogging and social networks can be monetized more ethically, democratically and effectively putting users at the right place and really leveraging the long tail
- Trust is really needed here. Dada won't have a role into the economical relationship between users and Google. Google will provide ads and pay users. Dada will only support the publishing platform. This is to me a sign of reliability and transparency.
- This is one of the rare example of services promoted by an italian company and delivered to US and other european countries. I hope to see other initiatives of this kind.
- Friend$ could be a way to monetize community outside of the Dada world. Other providers can use the platform to generate revenues and give back a part of them to their users
- From some preliminary analysis this is a sustainable model. The ARPU provided by social advertising could even replace the money currently paid by end users
Of course a long list of issues arise here:
- I told people will get part of the revenue. How much is that?
- How many users will produce so many clicks to get significant amounts of money?
- Paid user generated content is also a path to improve the quality of contribution?
- Will it be possible to remix the platform (widget, API, export of your data)?
The bottom line still is: Hey, the sharecropping is going to be replaced by a new relationship in which users are, by any perspective, partners and not simply costumers.
Companies will have to reflect on this to keep their share.
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