Pay day

Seven months ago I posted about my first payment of $100 from Tsu. This week I'm happy to report that I've been paid again! With the current weak pound it's worth a little more than last time. Those in the USA get a cheque in a black envelope and some cool stickers, but it has to be via Paypal for us in the UK.

I've actually earned a lot more than $100 in that period, but I gave a lot to charity via various campaigns. One of those was a month of sponsoring the runs of member in my Fun Runners channel for Charity Water. That just reached 500 followers. I've also been supporting Papillon Foundation in South Africa and Edlington Community Organisation in the UK. It would be great to see more charities on there from around the world. It's so easy to donate on Tsu, even if it's just a few cents, and there are no transaction fees. It's money you would not have otherwise, so why not help others?

Tsu continues to gain users, but has struggled to keep them engaged. I keep an eye on their stats via a couple of sites. Their Alexa ranking has been falling since the start of this year, but has just started to rise again. There's a lot of growth in places like Pakistan where a local celebrity has been recruiting a lot of new people. The new users need to be guided to using Tsu in the ways it was intended. There are still a lot of people just posting images they found on-line. They will not get paid if they are breaching copyright.

My own network is slowly growing. I have people in there from all over the world. A few are active and I try to encourage them to keep going. If they can build their own following and network then they will see their earnings rise.

I've spent some of my earnings on music by some musicians I've been following. +Matt Stevens is not yet on Tsu, but I've known him for years. I discovered +Deni Gauthier and +Cherry White on Tsu. It's cool to engage with artists you enjoy.

I bought another one from guitarist +Elliott Randall (ex-Steely Dan) who is also on Tsu.

Tsu is still fun for me, so I'll be sticking around there. I think it has massive potential for artists, musicians and charities. They can bring in their supporters to build the service. At around five million users they are small compared to the likes of Facebook and Twitter, but if they keep growing they could become a major financial force. Many of us are producing cool content that earns those sites revenue from advertising. I think we deserve to get a share.