Calacanis: Paying Users for Submissions Encourages Growth

Yahoo's new partnership with Current.tv is adopting the paid content model, and Netscape's Jason Calacanis says that move will help them grow faster.

I was perusing the Yahoo Current Network video site today, and I noticed this bit in the licensing FAQ: "If you upload your video to the Yahoo! Current Network here it will be eligible to be broadcast on the Yahoo! Current Network channels, as well as on Current's cable and satellite network. If it is broadcast on Yahoo! Current, you will be paid $100, and if it is also selected to air on Current TV, you will be paid an additional $500."

Yahoo is rewarding its top users for their content submissions. Mashable's Pete Cashmore noticed it as well.

I asked Netscape's Jason Calacanis to comment on Yahoo's decision to pay top users for their submissions. Calacanis has been paying the top users at Netscape.com around $1000 per month for their submissions to the social news site. Other social news and media sites, like Digg and YouTube, do not pay users for their submissions.

Calacanis sent his comments over email:

The top contributors in these system put in far more work then the system could ever give back to them. This disparity creates the opportunity for the people running the system to reward their top members with compensation.

Additionally, there are a limited number of 1%-ers out there, and if YouTube and Digg are not willing to pay those users, they will loose them to Revver, Current/Yahoo, and Netscape. Will that kill Digg and YouTube? Of course not, but it will cause the other systems to grow at a faster rate.

The fact that entrepreneurs are holding on to this notion that users shouldn't be paid for their work while they profit from it is absurd.

Three years ago, people told me blogging would be ruined because we started paying people and the exact opposite happened: blogging started booming once people could make a living from it. Heck, you're getting paid by Wired to blog right?

Why yes, Jason. I am! (But it's Wired News)

I should also note that this model isn't in place for the standard Current.tv content submissions -- users submit videos to the Current site, but they only get paid when a video makes it onto the air on the Current cable station. Current pays out between $500 and $1000 per video on a tiered plan.