There is a new trend online (this site members are directly involved
in) - revenue sharing as a business model applied to forums, blogs,
news communities, social networks, video sites, etc..
The idea is very straight and simple - whatever advertising revenues the site earns is split with the active community members.
The
most common way to setup this is via contextual advertising accounts,
such as Google Adsense, where a generic ad type is displayed and the
publisher ID is dynamically assigned between site owners or members who
actually created the content.
This model - to share revenue - is
a model that empowers a basic idea of the internet as a democratic
communications channel, and if revenues are shared democratically and
fair, then you have a potentially very powerful system.
The
problem is that any web project involves costs, but with so many
established webmasters online able to leverage their assets towards
revenue share, this is an economic model that is going to become
increasingly popular.
Revenue share isn’t a new idea - About.com
has been running it’s own form of revenue share with topic editors for
years, but is performance based - so if you fail to attract the right
amount of traffic and monetisation, you may be dropped as an editor.
But
in a Web 2.0 world of User Generated Content (UGC), communities which
offer chances for members to earn from their contributions provides
possibility for visitors to become members, and members to become
active contributors. Another advantage is using third-party contextual
advertising programs - such as Google Adsense: Providing earnings from
revenue sharing is the feasibility to pay members directly by
advertising program.
Some examples of revenue sharing sites:
ApSense - free business social network
Yuwie - pay members for activity
Senserely - revenue sharing community
Flixya - share everything!
Magnify.Net
Easy-Share