The great thing about Web2.0 is that everyone can participate. Everyone can add to the content. But does everyone get to make money?
Consider three scenarios:
Amazon, a commercial marketplace, with users adding reviews and ratings. Users don't get anything for adding a review, Amazon does. (Of course, users get to read other people's reviews, and make informed decisions. A bit like Pay it Forward, but I will leave the larger implications to another post.)
Another site, with a lot of user generated content, displays ads to generate revenue. Again the users get to participate in generating the content, but not in the earnings.
Yet another site, gets users to generate lots of content and eye-balls, and waits to cash out in a sale to a larger player. Again the users who generated the content in the first place lose out.
Put micro-payments into place, along with all its shortcomings (!), and let everyone participate in the earnings, including the people who put those apps up, as brokers. Of course micro-payments is not going to be a panacea, but it is worth taking the web in that direction.
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I have wondered why some of the people who write detailed comments on Amazon ,dont just maintain their own blogs and earn money from shopfronts and/or adsense.
ReplyDeleteSB
Good post.
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