Comments on: Can You Buy a Community?

By: Andrew Mager

Andrew Mager — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Excellent remarks Mike. I looked at that story earlier today and it makes sense to me… I find myself on Digg 10 times a day, and if an article has a lot of diggs, I click it simply because it has a lot of diggs.

I feel like if more people like an article and like it, I will be more tuned to scan it myself. Social media excites me every day, and I am loving the way Newsvine is gaining strength.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

That’s an interesting article, but I have doubts that it will work.

It’s the same old adage of post counts. If you’ve ever been to a tech forum that counts how many posts you tack up, the amount of worthless posts is astounding. When people feel like they are getting rewarded for something, they will tend to focus on the reward and not the task. I’m thinking that the type of people that enter into this contract will begin posting whatever crap they can find on the internet just to make their baseline.

It’s already tough to find quality weblog comments and news submissions, let alone encouraging quantity over quality. A reward system sounds interesting, but maybe just counting how many submissions someone makes is the wrong way to go about it. A better model might be, say on Digg, rewarding a user for how many other people dugg the article. I.e., any article over 500 diggs, the user will recieve $.005 per digg, but any article under 500 will subtract from that. Something along those lines. That method has its problems too, but I am sure there is a more creative and stable method than simply paying someone a monthly salary to submit worthless content.

Can a community be bought? Sure. Anything is possible. Is Jason’s method the right way of doing it? I don’t think so.

By: Sean Madden

Sean Madden — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Don’t worry Mike, I can’t be bought for any price.

By: milo 317

milo 317 — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Good article, Mike, nowadays you can buy everything….

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think Calacanis’ idea is great, and will benefit the ‘seeding’ industry/community as a whole.

What is a store that allows anybody to set up a booth and sell their items? It’s called a flea market. What is a store that buys from specific, high-quality producers. It’s called a super market.

Calacanis wants to build a super market, not a flea market. The community can choose where they want to browse for their links. I like that idea and I think it will work quite well for Netscape.

By: BCM

BCM — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mike,

How about an update on Newsvine? How is it doing? How many users have signed up? What percent login on a daily or weekly basis? I’m interested in learning how successful the site’s been thus far.

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

BCM: Site’s doing great so far. June was our biggest month and July has blown it away so far. This when most news sites are experiencing the standard summer downturn.

By: Miguel

Miguel — Tue, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Bahh. I don’t think losing a writer or two will really affect Newsvine. There are tons of good writers in the community already. Personally, I think that’s what keeps it running and interesting.

Regarding the last comment from BCM:
Yeah Mike. I was actually wondering if you could give us a ballpark for the number of members at Newsvine (I’m reeaally curious…). I’ve been writting since November ’05 now and I have seen a HUGE increase in the amount of people visiting. The site is amazing! I love it.