Major Internet companies like Facebook and Twitter make a profit off your photos, life moments, and other shared content. But a new wave of startups want to let you earn a commission on your thoughts.
It's not an entirely new concept. Reddit pays its users a fraction of its ad revenue, and other platforms like Tugboat Yards have been trying to let writers earn money on otherwise unpaid blog posts.
This latest movement lets consumers directly pitch products to their peers based on their own positive experiences and earn a commission for doing so. These platforms in effect cut out the middleman, meaning users never have to deal with an advertiser or ad placement company.
Tagspire
Think of it as a Pinterest/Polyvore hybrid, except that users get paid anytime someone buys one of the posted products. Tagspire is a web and mobile app that lets you post pictures of products and then tag them with their price and a link to the place where the item can be bought.
"Once you graduate from Pinterest, you go to Tagspire," says founder Karim Hijazi.
The app features a feed of user-suggested products just like you see in Polyvore and universal shopping cart Keep. The app just launched, so for the moment many of the photos currently uploaded look like professional product shots, but the idea is that users will post selfies and other more authentic-looking photos with products in them. Tagspire wants to give people a platform where they can show off stuff they want to buy as well as products they've loved and get some cash in return.
At this point Pinterest has become such a household name that Tagspire's ability to siphon off its user base will be difficult. But Tagspire's technology applied to a platform like Tumblr, Pinterest, or even Instagram could be a killer way to drive engagement and sales. Hijazi says that he decided not to run his technology as a feature or third-party app on an established site, because he didn't want to be dependent on another platform (like Meerkat was on Twitter, for example). Instead he decided to launch his own app and let the market determine the success of his product.
For platforms that are already earning advertising dollars on their platform, Tagspire represents a way to turn a picture-sharing platform into an e-commerce opportunity and bring additional value to users.
Rollinglobe
Still in beta, Rollinglobe is a web platform for showcasing your intrepid travels and letting other people purchase them as vacation packages. The platform hooks into Booking.com for travel listings, so that purchasing these bespoke travel packages is easy.
Like Tagspire, Rollinglobe lets its travelers vouch for the quality of the product. The platform pairs recommendations with commerce to earn travelers a commission for putting together carefully curated trips and gives consumers who don't want to sift through various vacation plans a unique experience.
Both Tagspire and Rollinglobe hinge on the authenticity of their users and allow the people with the best, or most popular, recommendations to rise to the top. Rollinglobe also gives users a profile page, so they can link out to travel packages from a blog, allowing travel pros to create content around their trips and foster a following (Tagspire would be wise to do something similar).
Essentially, these apps let tastemakers earn cash off their product suggestions. For retailers it means the best kind of product endorsement: one from a happy customer.