Abusing The Democracy of Web 2.0
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
Subvert and Profit which label themselves as “a new kind of black market” pay social network users to digg stories for advertisers who want to be spotted on Digg’s homepage.
Digg users can now sign up and receive $0.50 for every digg they make. Advertisers pay $1 per Digg vote. Other services like Spike the Vote (which is now offline) and User/Submitter (which is still online but allegedly ceased operation), have tried this model before. Since this sort of manipulation of digg votes in exchange for money is in clear violation of Digg’s terms and conditions, many of the users who were involved in these activities were banned from Digg. Subvert and Profit are pretty sure that they have programmed some terrific algorithms that will prevent their users from being tracked. Spike the Vote also believed that they had a bulletproof mechanism to cheat Digg, but in the end, their model didn’t work, users got banned, and their domain name was sold on ebay for $1275 and donated to digg. It’s nice to see that digg users are trying to fight back.
I find it quite sad that these blackmarket companies try to abuse the wonderful new age of Web 2.0 where democratization of content rules and users are able to share and recommend services and products which they actually like and enjoy. It is one thing to promote a product you use, like, and think can be useful to your community. It is another thing to digg a story for a product you don’t even know just to get hard cold cash. If companies such as Subvert and Profit succeed in their mission, all such social networks will turn into “spam networks” which will eventually cause real users to lose interest and stop participating. What good will this bring the advertisers when such sites are only filled with paid users trying to make a fast buck and not even interested in the actual content?
We must remember that sites like Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon, are not just sites. They are communities made up of people who feel secure enough to bond and share their favorites with one another. Once we lose this security, such networks will inevitably be subverted. Not by Subvert and Profit but by the real users themselves.
I posted a comment expressing my feelings on the matter on TechCrunch, and Ragnar Danneskjold, co-founder of Subvert and Profit replied the following:
“You’re forgetting two things:
- The majority of people are stupid. Thus, “democracy” propagates dumb content.
- Democratic web 2.0 sites are already rigged to a large extent, and most people don’t care
We’re not going to ruin anything.”
I am glad that Mr. Danneskjold has such high regard for people. It is good to know that as a marketer, Mr. Danneskjold thinks of his target audience as stupid.
Will we as members of these social networks let Mr. Danneskjold and his legions overtake our communities?
Technorati tags: subvertandprofit, digg, socialnetworks, crowdsourcing, advertising, spikethevote, usersubmitter, cheating, ebay, phill midwinter, web 2.0, web, content, sharing, community, delicious, stumbleupon, network, techcrunch, ragnardanneskjold, marketing
