Panjea - MySpace with Revenue Sharing?

Credit:

Panjea is a new social network that aims to pay users for their contributions. Members are paid a percentage of the ad revenue from their pages, as well as earning points for simply using the site. Additionally, you can earn money by selling your music and videos in a Panjea store. The blurb:

Panjea empowers you to easily express yourself online in words, music, photos, and videos, while earning cash for your creative contributions and points for community participation...You bring the creativity. We bring the advertising sponsors. You earn a % of the ad revenue from visits to your place on Panjea. We receive a small % as your virtual agent.

I'm bearish on this one for a number of reasons. Aside from the irritating use of Flash (beware the auto-playing videos), I'm not convinced that revenue sharing should be the primary motivation for using a MySpace-style network. Whatever you might think of them, it's clear that Squidoo, Gather and RateItAll are about generating content. And since that content generates revenue, the users might want to get paid. However, MySpace isn't about generating content - it's about connecting with others and earning respect/fame. In other words: you can't beat MySpace with rev share. I'm also concerned about the "store" idea - it seems highly unlikely that users will pay to download videos from their peers.

Nonetheless, I'm still extremely upbeat on social shopping services like MyPicklist and Zlio (US version on the way!). Why? Firstly, because they're leveraging existing social networks, rather than building new ones (aka feeding the MySpace beast). And secondly, because affiliate schemes are harder to game than ad-based revenue sharing - while creating thousands of spammy Panjea profiles might be profitable, having multiple MyPicklist accounts wouldn't make any difference at all.

[img src="" caption="" credit="" alt=""]