Digsby passes 1 million users, pays you $1 to add more

July 24, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler | Comments |
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Digsby, which ties your social networking, instant messaging and e-mail accounts into one interface, just passed 1 million users and started an affiliate program yesterday that pays fans $1 for every new user they sign up. Digsby says its average revenue per user exceeds the cost of finding new ones through the program, so the program generates cash flow. Users sign up on Digsby’s site and then use banners, links and buttons to promote the service.

From Digsby:

A first in the IM industry, the program will pay you up to $1.00 for every new Digsby user you bring. Affiliates can promote Digsby by placing banners or buttons on their blog or website, or by simply inviting their friends with their affiliate link.

DotSyntax, the Rochester, New York-based company behind Digsby is trying to hit a vein and accelerate growth against other social aggregator services like Imo.im, Trillian or Meebo. (By comparison, Meebo says it reaches more than 50 million users through its chat client and a toolbar it launched last month.) The company was founded in 2005 by a group of Rochester Institute of Technology graduates and closed an angel round in 2006.

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Photo of Kim-Mai Cutler

About the Author, Kim-Mai Cutler

Kim-Mai was born and raised a stone's throw from Apple headquarters in Cupertino by a devout Hewlett-Packard family. After attending UC Berkeley, Kim-Mai worked for Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires in New York, Los Angeles, London and Buenos Aires. Follow her on Twitter at @kimmaicutler, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Interesting - a side effect of this is that it will promote a spammy friend-adding environment (a la myspace), which was good for a quick burst but wasn't sustainable.
  • So check this:

    It's too bad they've got a killer interface, because the slick execution of what the program ACTUALLY does on your computer is scandalous.

    I've read a lot of Terms of Service in my day, but theirs (http://www.digsby.com/tos.php) states pretty clearly that they're creating a cloud, using your hard drive, and this program is merely the Trojan Horse.

    Your idle time is their time to run calculations on your CPU.

    Too bad...their product is at least six months ahead of everyone elses.
  • Hi caseyallen, I'm sorry it's taken so long to reply, I just saw your comment. There is more info about this on our blog post from when we first announced it:

    http://blog.digsby.com/archives/68

    You can disable it in Help > Support Digsby, however this option will be moved into a more prominent place in the preferences.

    Most importantly, it has no effect on your computer's performance. It only kicks on after you have been idle (no keyboard or mouse activity) for at least 5 minutes and turns off as soon as there is keyboard or mouse movement. On laptops, it will use a much smaller portion of your CPUs overall processing power than it will on desktops. It will also never turn on if your laptop is running on battery power.

    A lot of our users think this is a good way to monetize a free product instead of plastering it with banner ads. However, we are always open to other alternatives and greatly appreciate feedback.
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