Few to many

No, no - "digital sharecropping".

And isn't it a somewhat Unexpected Consequence for a relatively cheap Netscape offer to be spurring lottery-like behavior at *Digg*?

Seth: 150 posts is ~$7 a post.

It takes 10 minutes to do a post.

6x7=$42 an hour.

$42 an hour = ~$1,600 a week for a 40 hour week.

$1,600 a week = ~$80,000 a year.

If someone takes 20 minutes per story that's $40k a year.

While it may be a small offer in terms of dollar amount it is not a small number in terms of time/effort.

Of course, we're hoping Navigators put in even more stories because they love it.

you mean cash, which is just as good as money? - Yogi Berra

There is an implicit assumption here that posting quality will stay high from the paid story submitters. I would guess that currently the "top 10" from social news site "X" currently impose pretty strict self-censorship on stories which fall below their quality threshold - after all it's key that the story reaches the front page to be a top user isn't it?

If you're now getting $7 a post, whether front page or not, won't the tendancy be to lower this threshold, just to pick up those extra bucks. This has to be the temptation when it's a straight correlation between pressing the submit button and $7.

It strikes me that is if the submitters are paid per post, the quality has to suffer, and so will overall story quality on Netscape.

If the submitters are paid per front page story, then the figures quoted by Calacanis above are not achievable.

So, either the site loses out in overall quality of content or the submitters don't get paid nearly as much as the math above suggests.

As I commented on this blog earlier, it's not all about the money for people on these sites. It's about community and recognition, and these will likely be eroded when cash is the primary motivation.

(Please excuse me as I've already posted this comment on "Benkler on Calacanis's wallet". But it fits also on this blog post.)

I made a cartoon about paid social bookmarker.

Bye,
Oliver

And isn't it a somewhat Unexpected Consequence for a relatively cheap Netscape offer to be spurring lottery-like behavior at *Digg*?

The whole thing validates the value of Digg's voters. They seem to identify quality stories and quality submitters.

It would also be interesting to analyze the sites and authors whose stories get dugg to the front page. Maybe they deserve a raise, too.

"Peerage production", that's very good. Really--that's a keeper.

"The data reveal that of Digg's 445,000 registered users ... the top 10 users ... contributed a whopping 30% of the front page stories."

The numbers suggest a very active head and a passive very, very long tail. How do the monetizing economics of the long tail apply in this case?

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