PayPerDigg and PayPerStumble: Get Paid to Stumble and Digg

I just found out from Susan Gunelius that there are now programs that provide compensation to Internet users who submit sites and news articles to the likes of Digg and StumbleUpon. Subvert and Profit, pays around $1 for every assignment that contains a list of links. There is also Stumbleudon that gives free 15 stumbles in exchange for your account to be used in an automated manner to stumble other sites.

I believe that as content sharing sites mature, there will always be a way to monetize them, similar to how advertising has evolved in websites and blogs. The challenge with blogs is that if the readers opt to use an RSS reader, they hardly get exposed to the outside-of-the-blog-post ads. Being linked becomes more of a targeted campaign to increase your Technorati authority, search engine visibility, and traffic (depending on blog popularity).

From an advertiser point of view, spending 100 dollars may be used to do any of the following:

• Run a Google AdWords campaign with a budget of 3 dollars a day.
• 10 to 15 text link ads appearing in various blogs (PayPerTextLink)
  
• 5 to 10 reviews (PayPerReview)
  
• On a social news or content site submission/vote campaign, that would be good for 50 to 100 votes or submissions. (PayPerSubmission, PayPerVote, PayPerDigg, PayPerStumble)
  
• On micro-blogging sites like Twitter, that would be good for 5 to 20 Twits reaching to no less than 5000 followers. (PayPerTwit, PayPerTweet, PayPerTwitter)
  

The ideal members of the above are active users of the tool and can use the revenue generation fees as income on the side. Users who opt to participate in such programs should take effort to ensure that their blogs and accounts will not be used for commercial purposes only. Else, they might harm their online status in the long run.

I still believe that each blogger is responsible for their own blog. Their blog is their own business and can do whatever with it. They are bound by their own rules, or the platforms, or of the blog networks, or the revenue programs they joined. If readers don't like what they see, they can easily tune out by not visiting your blog anymore or unsubscribe to your blog feed. The same may be applicable to social news site and micro blogging tools like Twitter.

The growth of ad networks, whether small/informal or big/formal, shall continue to thrive. It will seize on opportunities that shall promote their client's interest. We can either become consumers, critics, contractor, or creator of these networks.

Related post:

• PayPerTweet: Get Paid to Tweet
• Six Principles to Create Project Ideas that Stick
• Blogging and the Long Tail
  
• Make Money Online Through Blog Advertising
• Roll-out: Advertising Revenue Program for Club Members
  

Friendster still number 1 social network in Asia

Despite the growing number of social networks, pioneer Friendster.com thrives with 80,000 registrants signing up everyday according to its March 2008 at-a-glance brief.

The younger generation, especially in Asia, flocks Friendster.com that makes the site still leading today. While the grown ups got hook to what they consider to be their social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Multiply, Friendster.com still has its own clique especially among the young.

Some interesting facts to know about Friendster.com (based on its March 2008 brief):

• 65 million registered users.
• Number 1 social network in Asia with 49 million registered users.
• Asia users are at the age 16 to 30 years old. (or even younger than 16)
  
• 55% female, 45% male
  
• 26 million registered in 2007
  
  
• Received 37 million unique visitors in February 2008 worldwide.
• 32 million monthly unique visitors from Asia.
• 17 million monthly unique visitors in 2007
  
  
• 8th largest website in terms of traffic
• 3rd largest social network, serving over 16.1 billion pages
• 1st in user engagement among the top global social networks
  
• average of 206 minutes per visitor per month
• YouTube (97 minutes)
• Google (46 minutes)
  
  
• Top 15 countries accessing Friendster are:
• Philippines (Young Filipino Internet User Report 2007)
  
• Indonesia
• Malaysia
• the United States
• Singapore
• Canada
• India
• Australia
• United Kingdom
• Japan
• United Arab Emirates
• China
• Taiwan
• Korea
  
  
• Friendster is available in 6 languages
  
• 66% or three quarters of a billion can now use the site.
  

Despite everything that has been written on the politics and competition that had threatened Friendster.com's standing in the social network arena, the site still has much to offer and with a loyal community who puts value in it. And if Asia will truly drive the growth of the Internet, as said by Vint Cerf, then Friendster has a limited or unlimited, depending on perspective, window of opportunity in its hands.

On another note, David Jones, VP-Marketing of Friendster.com will deliver the keynote message in the forthcoming Social Networking and eBusiness Conference Philippines 2008 this May 20. His colleague, marketing director Jeff Roberto, will also be giving an overview of the site's application development program on May 21. Friendster.com is one of the exhibitors and will be speaking for the first time in a Philippines social networking conference event.

Blogging Connections and Upcoming Events

The coming two months will surely be interesting due to numerous events about to happen. Some of them includes:

• Regnard Raquedan is organizing a Corporate Blogging and Online Reputation Management seminar this April 11.
  
• iBlog4: The 4th Philippine Blogging Summit is scheduled to happen this April 26. The registration will be open soon and shall post an announcement once it is. Parties interested to sponsor are more than encouraged.

Here are some blog posts that I enjoyed reading:

• Connie Veneracion shared pictures of her recent food trip in Boracay. Just found out that we have the same allergy to shrimps.
• Pamela Angela's encounter with Reese Witherspoon makes me so envious. I love Elle Woods and know the feeling of wearing grandma's clothes (worn a long yellow cocktail dress while singing "Kahit Maputi na ang Buhok Ko" during Linggo ng Wika in high school aahhh!).
• Jove Francisco's post about his recent coverage inside the Presidential palace, where allies insinuated that the worst is over, gives you a feeling that PGMA is really affected on what is going on, no matter how her supporters tries to put up a show.
• On a related note, John Nery also wrote how Jun Lozada may lose his groove. I can't help but think how long can Jun Lozada sustain what he is doing now. Perhaps he should also start blogging. I met this guy twice (casual hi and hello), both in Microsoft events, I think he can use blogging as a medium pretty well.
• AteSienna posted a reaction to how much money are being spent by the rich folks Brian Gorrell cited in his blog, in comparison to the poverty situation of the country.
• Liz blogs about how much time she spents online surfing the web and social network.
  
• Dave Llorito says jobs are not scarce. In fact, Entrepreneur magazine is looking for part time writers.
• I can't help but laugh after reading the scrap notes that Aileen gets in some social networking websites. Lots of them in Orkut. I think I have to learn how to disable the scraps portion of it.
• I'm going to the library later to see if the movies reviewed by the Wily Filipino is available.
  

Social Networks and Privacy

There's a lot of talk happening right now about social networks, especially Facebook. I agree with the Man in Blue that it is not the site but each one of us are owners of social networks. When I take stock of what I have, this is what I realized:

• My Yahoo Groups allows me to keep my readers informed on what's new in my site.
• Twitter gets me posted on what friends and idols in the blogging community are doing now.
  
• MyBlogLog lets me know what my contacts are reading as it appears on "what's hot in my communities" and what else are they reading through its blog stats.
  
• LinkedIn establishes a permanent connection with the people I've met in various events I participated in, club members, and those who joined my Yahoo Groups.
• I monitor what my relatives and friends are up to through Friendster.

If there's one thing I enjoy about social networks is that it allows you to catch up with people whom you haven't seen for a long time, like what happened to Joh recently. In Facebook, I was surprised to see again one of my students in the APEC E-Biz Training for Women SMEs two years ago, Sarah Benjamin, site owner of Simply Rose Petals.

So I guess the idea of having an ultimate social network where all of these are in may be nice but I'm a little against it as well. For one, I support the idea of segmentation. There are just some stuff that you can't mix and best that they are separated. An entity having full vision of your Internet life may not be so great. We have to remind our kids also from pouring their heart out online or even inventing stories online using these sites as that may get them into trouble later on.