SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook and most other social networks are built on the premise that just about everything should be shared —except the money those posts produce.
At least two services are trying to change that. Bubblews, a social network that came out of out of an extended test phase last week, pays users for posts that attract traffic and advertisers. Another company, Bonzo Me, has been doing something similar since early July.
“I just feel like everyone on social networks has been taken advantage of for long enough,” says Michael Nusbaum, a New Jersey surgeon who created Bonzo Me. “Facebook has been making a ton of money, and the people providing the content aren’t getting anything.”
Bonzo Me is paying its users up to 80 percent of its ad revenue for the most popular posts.
Bubblews’ compensation formula is more complex. It’s based on the number of times that each post is clicked on or provokes some other kind of networking activity. To start, the payments are expected to translate into just a penny per view, comment or like. Bubblews plans to pay its users in $50 increments, meaning it could take a while for most users to qualify for their first paycheck unless they post material that goes viral.
“No one should come to our site in anticipation of being able to quit their day job,” Bubblews CEO Arvind Dixit says. “But we are trying to be fair with our users. Social networks don’t have to be places where you feel like you’re being exploited.”
Bubblews is also trying to make its service worthwhile for users by encouraging deeper, thoughtful posts instead of musings about trifling subjects. To do that, it requires each post to span at least 400 characters, or roughly the opening two paragraphs of this story.
Technology analyst Rob Enderle believes Bubblews, or something like it, eventually will catch on.
“I don’t think this free-content model is sustainable,” Enderle says. “You can’t sustain the quality of the product if you aren’t paying people for the content that they are creating. And you can’t pay your bills if all you are getting are ‘likes.’ “
Gerry Kelly of San Francisco has already earned nearly $100 from Bubblews since he began using a test version in January. His Bubblews feed serves as a journal about the lessons he has learned in life, as well as a forum for his clothing brand, Sonas Denim.
Though Facebook is by far the largest social network, it has a history of irking users. People have complained when Facebook changed privacy settings in ways that exposed posts to a wider audience. They have criticized Facebook for circulating ads containing endorsements from users who didn’t authorize the marketing messages.
