Gambling and Bribery on Web 2.0

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Gambling and Bribery on Web 2.0

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In web 2.0, we have seen contests or "free gambling" used to attract new users and encourage them to create content (UGT). For example, Message board thread contests often pay users that post at certain intervals (eg. the 750th and 1500th post win $500). This has the effect of having many users track the thread (to check what post number they are up to) as well as having the thread constantly "bumped" to the top of the board. In essence, these thread sponsors are bribing their users with games of chance.

Jason Calacanis of Weblog Inc recently re-launched Netscape as essentially a Digg clone. Realizing that the top 00.03% of social bookmarking users represent the bulk of activity on Web 2.0 sites, Jason has offered to pay (bribe) any of the top 50 users on either Digg or Del.icio.us to use new Netscape. It has yet to be seen if Money can be used to motivate these super users to migrate. This has lead to some interesting back and forths between Jason and Kevin Ross. Interestingly, what Jason Calacanis is suggesting is one step towards what was predidicted in the famous Googlezon Video.

Contest bribery has already been used effectively encourage the casual users of social bookmarking sites to act. With the offer of a chance to win $100, bumpy managed to attract more than 3,250 Del.icio.us Bookmarkers to his site - a wildly successful contest by any measure. By contrast, it normally takes a mere 70 or so delicious bookmarks in a 2 day period to make it to the del.icio.us/popular section.

On the heels of that success, slybet.com is running a similar contest targeting both Digg and Delicious Users. In that contest, users are offered a chance to win $400 by both digging the original story and bookmarking the site with del.icio.us. In an ironic twist, Slybets covers gambling topics like poker strategy, sports handicapping, and casino gambling. Can a site about gambling capitalize on the contests and gambling phenomenon on web 2.0? Only time will tell. The Sly Bets contest winner will be announced on August 31st.

What is clear is that gambling (contests) and bribery (capatilism) will continue to shape the web. However, the success or failure of these early test cases may decide whether users getting paid for their participation stays a sparatic advertising gimick, or becomes a staple of web 2.0.