Today I came across another website advertising itself as a revenue sharing social bookmarking site. I know, a bit of a mouthful and this one was even harder to swallow. For all the promises not every startup is successful and although Plibb.com is still online it looks in desperate need of an oxygen tent.

Firstly, I have to say that the growth in social networking sites that actually pay their members is a huge step forward. The convergence between article directories, bookmarking and social networking sites is great for writers, bloggers and bookmarking fans alike. With the development of simple Adsense revenue sharing plugins I think the stage is set for another little revolution. The big guns such as Facebook and MySpace must be watching this and may well have to react before they start losing hordes to paying sites.

I know that not everyone is in it for the money, and for some people the income is just a nice bonus with which they can treat themselves. But for many people around the world a few extra dollars is a lot of money. Why bother bookmarking for kudos when you can do it for cash?

So as this new wave of websites, in which I include Xomba and a few others, gather momentum shouldn't we all be starting our own sites? Well, a look at Plibb will show you how it can all go horribly wrong.

The homepage itself gives no confidence as the box on the right says "What is Pligg?" I know that 'g' and 'b' are near to each other on the keyboard but wouldn't you correct a typo on your homepage? Clicking on any story reveals no adverts whatsoever plus a batch of spam comments. No FAQ, no people, no buzz, no earnings. Looks like an experiment that the admin got bored with. I found it through another news link, so somebody else was taking notice when they launched, but it has now joined the website graveyard.

No site, and most especially no site that involves a huge amount of people input, can function without dedicated admins. I know from past experience that it is daily work with no weekends and no time off unless you have cover. The rewards can be very good, even astronomical if one is lucky, but at the start one is driven by desire.

And this is where I think this new wave of sites have an advantage over the old. The desire of admins and users is aligned in creating the best possible platform to thrive together. There is also a genuine investment on both sides. Losing a site is not just losing the past but also the future as articles never die but just hibernate.

So, farewell to Plibb and welcome to Xomba!

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