With so many of the Web 2.0 sites out there being social sites, it’s really only a matter of time before a shift is made from getting users to work for free to having to pay them.

The site that got me thinking about this is nerdynews. On the surface, nerdynews is just yet another digg clone. And to top it, they don’t really have any traffic or users yet… the only stories being posted appear to be from the founders. Ok… we can’t all have instant traffic driven by mediocre fame like Kevin Rose.

But, the idea is sound in a way. Nerdynews works by allowing users to linking their AdSense account information to the stories they submit. Revenues from AdSense are split 50/50 and automatically credited to the users account via the AdSense API.

Issue #1: You have to actually view the comments section of each story to see the ad. This will seriously hinder the ad revenue for users.
Issue #2: They are going to have to attract users in order to… attract users. Early adopters are going to see almost no revenue. I think nerdynews needs another draw to bring users in. Why would I go to nerdynews instead of digg or mixx?

According to comScore, social sites are moving higher and higher in terms of traffic counts. Of the sites reported, many have seen a greater than 100% increase in total unique visitors in one year.

• Facebook: 118%
• Flickr: 138%
• Digg: 280%
• Bebo: 93%
• Myspace: 28%
• Linkedin: 257%
• Imeem: 712%

With an overall growth in Total U.S. Internet Audience of only 5%, those are some pretty impressive numbers. Myspace still tops the list of total unique visitors at 71 million, but Facebook is rapidly approaching with 32 million. Unfortunately, these numbers only cover the U.S.

Some blasts from the past:

• Geocities: -11%
• Tripod: -21%
• Xanga: -49%

Source: comScore via TechCrunch.

Facebook has begun gathering information about users who also use Fandango, Overstock, and other online retailers. According to an AP article, this is an opt-out program but the check box to opt-out disappears after only 20 seconds. Other opt-out methods for the program are available, but only after the transaction has taken place and the story posted to your profile.

Users are claiming this is a privacy invasion, and it even appears to have ruined a Hanukkah surprise for at least one user.

How far is too far? Should my online buying decisions really be shared with all of my friends? Users can decline sharing on a site-by-site basis, but are unable to withdraw from the program completely.

Related Story at Slashdot
Update: TechCrunch has picked up the story, but failed to see the overall point… focusing instead of personal information a user enters being stored in “the matrix” instead of online shopping activities being tracked and broadcast to friends with barely an opt-out option.

Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia is apparently biting the hand that feeds fed him. Microsoft bought Hotmail for $400 million, which Bhatia presumably didn’t receive all off (split among partners and investors). But now, in a rather ballsy move, has launched (sort of) a product that is a pretty big rip off on the Microsoft brand and trademarks. Live Documents, which contains a dash(-) in it’s domain name (a clear sign of a serious company), almost launched this week. I say almost because there was a press release and there is a website, but there is no function demonstration or even screen shots of the application.

Live Documents claims to be a Microsoft Office / Google Documents killer with an off-line component based on… you guessed it… Microsoft Office. I’ll spare you the rehash of what I am considering vaporware at this point. When (if) I receive my invitation to the private beta, I’ll fill you in on reality at Live Documents.

TechCrunch – Live Documents To Break Microsoft?¢â‚¬A¦We?¢â‚¬â„¢ll See
Macworld – Hotmail co-founder launches online office suite

What this brings to eBay’s business model, I don’t think I will ever be able to guess. “Best of eBay is a community driven website dedicated to showcasing the most interesting eBay listings. Nominate or vote for the strangest, funniest, or eccentric listings on eBay.” Basically, eBay is trying to create an additional community around auctions, allowing visitors to comment on these strange, funny, and eccentric listings. (Note that two items have comments: 2 comments on a 6 day old listing, 1 comment on a 5 day old listing.) The highest voted item has 38 votes. It appears that in 6 days, eBay has failed to generate any buzz. The colossal failure of this idea should be amusing to watch.

tiinker, built by Deep Grey Labs, a start-up from Sydney Australia, is an “intelligent news aggregator.” Essentially, it is an RSS reader that lets you vote stories as interesting or not interesting. Based on these votes, tiinker is supposed to show you stories, via the numerous RSS feeds they consume, that are interesting to you. The site allows visitors to add their own RSS feeds as well which are added to the mix of stories presented to you.

tiinker is not a typical RSS reader however. The interface is not customizable and posts from feeds are not presented together. tiinker is more like Google News, but supposedly intelligent.

MiniBoxs is an interesting concept in the world of RSS aggregators. Firstly, it’s not at all customizable and that’s pretty different in the Web 2.0 world. Generally, RSS aggregators are totally customizable… meaning you can add your own feeds and shuffle them around the page. Not with MiniBoxs.

But that’s not the market they appear to be going for. “MiniBoxs is a vivid RSS aggregator that offers a new approach to surfing the Internet and presents its users with a simple way to get updated with news and content from around the globe in a wide variety of topics. MiniBoxs is an easy way to familiarize yourself with a handful websites, from the most popular portals and blogs to various Internet magazines, social networks, web2.0 sites, leading video and image sharing communities and other top rated gems that are often missed by the general surfers’ community” says the MiniFAQ. “Unlike Netvibes, Pageflakes, Webwag and even unlike popurls and OriginalSignal – MiniBoxs can’t be customized or personalized and his structure is organized by dividing the hottest categories on the net in order to enrich the mainstream audience.”

I like the concept. I’m always surfing for news and I think that it is great to see so many sources on one site. I like that I don’t have to bother with building my own library of feeds. I use Google Reader for a select few sites that I track, but when I’m just surfing for random news I like a site like this. Google News just doesn’t give me enough links on the front page.

MiniBoxs has a ton of stories on the front page and it’s a nice site to kill some time with.

Google took one giant step forward with Google Apps last week by offering a mail migration API for companies that want to move to Google Apps. The API allows administrators to move email from any system to Google – calendars and contacts can also be moved.

PC World has some coverage…

In the next three to five years Microsoft hopes to be one of the top two players in the online advertising market. This is according to Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft’s platforms and services devision, which he laid out at a recent UBS investor conference. The plan breaks down like this:

• Increase MS sites from 6 percent to 10 percent of all Internet page views
• Increase the percentage of minutes spent on MS sites from 17 percent to 20 percent of total time spend on the ‘net
• Increase online search using MS sites from 10 percent to 30 percent
• Increase the percentage of all ‘net advertising dollars from 6 percent to 40 percent

Lofty goals Microsoft. Some innovation is going to be key to their strategy. Meaning, they are going to have to bring something new to the market, instead of simply playing catch up with Google.

LiveRail offers an interesting model, but will it work? The company serves two primary groups: publishers and advertisers. LiveRail allows publishers to upload and serve their video content from LiveRail servers. LiveRail is using Amazon S3 for storage and delivery. When a visitor views a video, the visitor is also presented with two small ad video previews below the content. If a visitor selects one of the ads, it is displayed, and then they can return to the video content they were watching. Advertisers only pay for actual ad views, and LiveRail shares this revenue with publishers.

I question if this model can really work. We all know that visitors don’t like advertising. But publishers need a to generate revenue. Generally, advertisers pay per page view. Page views are not optional — if the visitor wants to see the content, they are going to see the ad (unless they block it, but let’s not go there). With LiveRail all ad views are optional.

Does opt-in advertising really work? LiveRail’s site says, “To make sure this opt-in advertising model works, LiveRail prioritizes which adverts to offer viewers based on a large number of very carefully balanced criteria, including the ad?¢â‚¬â„¢s relevance, popularity, reputation and of course advertiser?¢â‚¬â„¢s budget. This ensures that when a viewer is offered an ad, they can be sure that it?¢â‚¬â„¢ll not only be relevant to their interests, but that the ad itself will have had the seal of approval from other users as being cool and worth watching.”

LiveRail is currently in public beta and I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.