Hyderabad: On the surface, social networking startup Bubblews works a lot like Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
Users create ‘bubbles’ (posts), follow one another, and Like and comment on the posts they find interesting. But there’s something that Bubblews believes it has that will attract new users — Bubblews will pay users to post.
Yep, you heard it right! When a user shares on Bubblews, they get paid for every Like, comment and unique view their post receives. They don’t, however, get paid for writing the post.
Like other social networks, users can write about a broad range of topics, from the just-concluded World Cup to cooking tips. Bubblews will split revenue evenly with users who are creating the content.
The strategy behind Bubblews is a counterintuitive one — companies have so far used user information to feed them targeted ads that earn the companies a hefty load of money. But Bubblews doesn’t think this is fair.
Here’s the surprising part — the social network isn’t really new. Having started in 2012, founders Dixit and Zuccari never sought any publicity simply because they were embarrassed by the product’s interface. But with Bubblews unveiling a redesign last Wednesday, people have started to sit up and take notice.
But even with a new look and the offer to pay users, Bubblews still has some obstacles to overcome, such as not having mobile app for iOS or Android yet. Also, users could abuse the system by setting up bots to automatically Like or comment on their own posts to profit.
The service is also headed in a different direction content-wise than Twitter and Vine, which are putting limits on the length of users’ content. Twitter imposed a 140-character limit for tweets, while Bubblews has a 400-character minimum for posts, requiring users to create longer pieces.
With 200,000 active users currently, Bubblews is still far, far off from competing with the likes of Facebook and Twitter, which have hundreds of millions more users. It does, however, offer an interesting alternative to those who spend tons of hours on the existing social networking websites.
