Tsu > Google+ ?

I've been on Google+ pretty much since it started about 4 years ago. I think it's a great platform and I don't find it to be a ghost town as some people suggest it is. I think it depends on the sort of people you hope to find here. There are enough geeky and musical people to keep me happy. I think it has the best user interface of the social sites I've used. I'm on Facebook too, but that's to stay in touch with people who will not use anything else. I don't get much news from there.

I also joined Tsu when it started 18 months ago. That is also struggling to be a mainstream social site, but then it was aimed at creative people who wanted to own their content and profit from it. It also suffers from negative propaganda about it being some kind of scam. There are people there trying to get something for nothing, but I just ignore them. I'm no celebrity, but I've managed to gain 3x the followers I have on G+ in a shorter time. I post several times a day with my thoughts and links to cool stuff. That is making me around a dollar per day.

A lot of my Tsu earnings go to charities, but I've had one payout of $100 so far and should have a couple more this year. Some people are making that much in a week, which is a nice little income. It requires effort and quality content to achieve that. Those who know how to build an active social following will do very well on Tsu. If they are earning something from their Youtube channel then they can double-up by linking the videos on Tsu.

It's not just about the money as it's barely buying me a beer per week. I wouldn't stick around if there were not so many cool people. The money is a bonus and I enjoy the feedback I get from happy charities.

The Children and Network numbers are for people who have joined via my Tsu link. I get paid a portion of what they make for the site. If you are thinking of joining then please consider using my link.

Clicking for charity

From the outset the Tsu social network has made charity a feature. Charity organisations can register their credentials and will then have a 'Make a Donation' button on their profile. Any user can click that to donate some of whatever funds they have accumulated through using the site. You get paid based on views and by recruiting, so it's no extra effort really.

There are currently 67 charities listed (link on this post). These cover a wide range of causes. I'd like to see some from the UK, so if you know of any then please tell them. I know that some have raised many thousands of dollars so far.

I've probably given away about half of what I have made so far on Tsu. There are lots of campaigns run by users to boost donations. I did one in February where I sponsored people in my running group. Other people matched my donations. And this is all with money that we would not have otherwise.

Tsu has undergone a big change in recent months. They released a major re-design of the site and changed how some aspects work.Previously you could post on your own profile or to a group. Now there are global 'topics' where posts must go so that people can find what suits their interests. 'Channels' can be created within these topics by users for more specific areas. People are still adjusting to this, but I think it has some real benefits.

If you haven't visited in a while then check it out. They have an extensive FAQ that should answer most questions. If you are not a member then please use this link. I get a small bonus from recruiting people and you can do the same. They really want to attract more people who create original content. Artists, musicians and others can benefit directly from their work and they don't need to pay to make it visible there.

Wow, an app

If you've been reading this blog then you will know that I like Tsu. It's a good social site that has a good mix of people. Of course it also pays you and I've made over $100 there that I was able to redeem recently. There have been a few other sites with similar models that I have tried over the last year, but none of them was as fun to use and so I didn't use them enough to earn a significant amount.

Now there'a chat app which also pays users from advertising revenue. It's called WowApp and it seems to offer a similar set of features to Skype. Like Tsu it offers the option to transfer money to charities. You see ads in the app (Window, Apple, iOS and Android, no Linux) and web site, but they are not terribly obtrusive.

I'm trying it for now with a few people and have made about a cent. I've only recruited one person whereas others have hundreds and they are making a lot more.

I'll still have to use Skype, Facebook, Google and WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends, but this is another option.

If you want to try it then please use my referral link at https://www.wowapp.com/w/steevc/Steve-Clark

Tsu's afraid...

The Tsu social network has now been running for over a year. It's still relatively new, but has managed to sign up over four million people all around the world. It's been interesting to see where it's been successful. Initially the USA had the most active members. Morocco got big when an account was opened for their king and lots of his subjects joined. India has also done well as you might expect with its massive population. Recently Pakistan saw a boom when a media star there joined and spread the word. Pakistan is currently top of the chart for visitors and views, but Brazil is rising fast.

Of course the big mover in social networks is Facebook and they seem to feel threatened by little Tsu to the extent of not allowing any links to Tsu and they also removed all existing Facebook posts that came via Tsu. Tsu lets you cross-post to your other social networks. This means that all my holiday pictures were removed from Facebook. It is also hampering people inviting their Facebook friends to join Tsu.

If you try to put a Tsu link into a Facebook post you are told that it is 'unsafe'. There's is an option to tell them otherwise, but I'm not sure anyone has had a proper response to that. You also cannot put a link in a Facebook instant message.

Tsu founder Sebastian Sobczak stated today that Tsu is actually spamming Facebook less than some other sites with access to the API and that Facebook should restore the deleted content.

This action has not gone unnoticed and there have been several articles on high profile sites about it. ZDNet reported this first (I think). It's also been on Huffington Post, Octafinance, DeMorgen (in Flemish) and, most recently, on CNN.

The publicity may be helping Tsu a little as it can lead to people wanting to join. In some cases the journalists provide their own profile link and thus gain in their own network.

There is a hint of hypocrisy here as Tsu previously blocked links to a site with a (very) similar business model. I think that other site went too far in copying some of the Tsu ideas and there may have been legal action, but I don't know exactly what happened.

I'm sticking with Tsu for now. I've been steadily earning a little each day and should be able to claim my $100 payout before the end of the year at the current rate, and I enjoy the banter I get there. There's massive potential for growth and for people to do very well via the referral incentive.

I still think it's the idea place for creative people who want to be rewarded for their work. They will earn from views, but there are also people 'tipping' good content via Tsu money transfers. As well as liking a post you can give real money. I don't see many other sites that can offer anything like that.

See you on Tsu

Group Therapy

The Tsu social network is about 10 months old now. That's a fairly long time in internet years and it should be reaching maturity now. The expectations for what a service should offer are set by the big guns like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Although each site should have some unique features to mark it out people expect certain features.

The latest new feature on Tsu is groups. Although you can follow people who share your interests it is useful to have a place for like-minded folk to discuss their interests without all having to follow each other.

There are a limited selection of groups available so far as they have to be approved by the team. This is partly because groups generate earnings as in other areas of the site and this could be abused. It should also prevent lots of similar groups being created. The creator and administrators of the group get a percentage, but some also goes to a nominated charity. In the current beta phase (first 30 days) nobody gets anything.

I have joined some groups, but quickly left some as they were just full of irrelevant posts that were filling up my stream and the admins were not dealing with them quickly enough. I think there have been changes since then so that you only see posts by friends unless you actually go to the group page.

More groups are being approved each week and I will look into those. I've created a couple of possible groups to see how that goes and have also been asked to be an admin on others.

In my opinion groups work best when they are for a fairly specific topic. Otherwise there will be an overwhelming number of posts and it will be impossible to find the good stuff unless there are good filtering tools. Perhaps posts with the most likes and comments should be highlighted. There also needs to be search within a group. I hope to see the feature evolve.

Any thoughts? Discuss here or on Tsu.

Tsu is not a scam or a pyramid scheme

Recently Jon Dunn on Tsu pointed out that some Google searches implied that Tsu was a bit dodgy.

I think the other results relate to Texas Southern University.

The definition of a pyramid scheme is that you use money paid in by some people to pay others, so that it will eventually collapse when people realise they will never get paid. It's a scam rather than a business.

I think this idea is due to a misunderstanding of how the Tsu algorithm works. It's true that people get paid based on what those they recruit make, but none of them needs to pay in any money. All the revenue comes from the advertising on the site and in the app (available on Android and iOS). The company is taking 10% to cover their costs, but still has some way to go before they are profitable.

The fact is that people are getting paid just about every day. Some of them post pictures of the cheques they have received to encourage others. The biggest I've seen is this one by songwriter Andrew Fromm.

He's by no means a typical user as his contacts in the music industry means he could recruit people who can easily grow a large network. He has 29,000 followers himself, so he can earn many dollars a week from his own views regardless. I know of many other people who have had hundreds of dollars from Tsu over the eight months since it started.

Personally I've made about $40 and I've given about half of that to charities on the service. There are about forty of those now and they seem to be doing well. The recent Tsu Madness event raised over $1000 that went to a wildlife charity. There are various events such as #FiveCentFriday that encourage regular giving. You can give as little as one cent, so just about anyone can donate.

It's still going to take me a while to get to $100 (threshold for a payout), but before then I may use some of my funds to buy some art from an artist on there. I've said before that the Tsu market has great potential and it seems to be taking off. It just needs a few more features to make life easier for those selling goods and services. The site is still evolving as they find their way.

The fly in the ointment is the fact that Tsu is not growing so fast of late. They have reached around four million users, but public statistics seem to indicate that fewer than 1 in 40 is visiting daily. I know a lot of my child accounts are dormant. Somehow they need to keep people engaged and actively recruiting. I think that some of the newcomers do not understand that they stand to benefit from getting their friends to join up and use the site. There is still massive growth potential, so it will be a long time before new users stand no chance of building a network. I've written about that too.

I'll keep using Tsu because it's fun. There are nice, friendly people there and we have a laugh. If I make a little extra money, then that's a bonus. As always, you can find me at http://www.tsu.co/steevc

Knocking down the walls

When Tim Berners-Lee developed the web he envisioned it as an open web of information that anyone could read (and modify originally). In the 25 years since then the web has changed a lot. Some sites are more like applications than just sources of information. One of the bad trends has been to lock sites behind some sort of barrier. This may be force people to pay for it or just to make them sign up to the site. There may be cases where privacy is required, but if I'm just sharing cool links or blogging then I want it to be accessible by anyone. That's one reason I use Blogger and other web sites I've run that have been open.

Although I liked many of the features of the Tsu social network I didn't like that it was a walled garden. If I sent anyone a link they would see this sign-up screen. That put me off sharing posts on other social networks. People thought I was trying to 'scam' them into joining some money-making scheme rather than being social.

Being able to share links across the various social sites is something I enjoy and any barriers to that were a pain.

As of today things have changed.









There's a new privacy option "Do not require users to sign-in to see my profile and posts". I've turned this on as I don't want my posts to be hidden. There's a further option to my profile from search engines, but I can't see any reason to do that.

It's going to be interesting to see if this affects the number of views I get. Tsu users have access to statistics on their most recent posts. You don't get details about where viewers came from, but it's interesting to see which posts work best. On Tsu views translate into income. When money is involved people will try to cheat the system and concerns were immediately raised about this. So it will be interesting to see if they count views from non-members.

Previously people have joined up just to see what the site is when someone sent them a link. Many of them never came back. Now they can have a look around first and decide if it's something they want to be part of.

I do see a few little issues with this. The profile that they originally visit only gets credited for new members if they join whilst on one of their posts (or the whole feed). If they click to another user (who has opened their feed) then the credit goes to that one. If they go to the 'home' page then they are back to the old method of having to manually enter a username. These may be teething problems that will get sorted out soon. The site is still relatively new and I don't know how much user testing has been done before making this feature available.

Tsu user Eileen Brown has written an article on ZDNet about the new open Tsu.

Here are a few of my recent selected posts for you to check out:

• From when I discovered the open Tsu
• Sharing a video about renewable energy on Orkney
• One of my photos from my neighbourhood

You are still limited in layout and number of images, so it's not an ideal blogging platform. I'll keep doing that here and post the links onto Tsu (and elsewhere).

I am making a little more money on Tsu lately, but it's not enough to justify my time. I stick around as I'm having fun interacting with cool people. It's interesting to play with a new site that is doing radical things. The money is just a bonus.

Collected thoughts

Earlier this week Google+ added a feature called Collections. This looks a lot like a feature I thought of some time ago that I called 'aspects'. I was thinking that there are some people I follow on social media who post on a variety of topics. In some cases these may be tagged, but it has not been easy to include or exclude specific topics. For example I follow some fellow Linux fans who are also into soccer, which is of no interest to me. I'd like to be able to exclude those posts from my feed as I have limited time to look through it all.

The Google+ feature allows you to select a Collection instead of circles for a post. When you create a Collection you can select whether your existing followers get it by default and they can opt out if they wish. You can also set whether it is public or for a circle (or just you). You cannot change that afterwards, so choose carefully. I created my Social networks Collection for my thoughts about G+, Tsu and other systems. I had a comment recently saying they thought I was 'spamming' their feed with money making schemes. That person could now opt out if they still want to see my other posts. The money making aspect of Tsu, 3tags and Bitlanders does interest me, but I don't expect to make much in the short term. I've given most of what I have made to charities that use those sites.

It would be good to see some automation of this feature by suggesting an appropriate Collection from keywords. Collections are already in the Android app.

I've seen a few opinion pieces saying that G+ is dead, but it seems pretty alive to me and this shows that they are still adding features. There are many millions of users and plenty of interest to me. It hasn't taken off like Facebook and Twitter, but I think it has the best set of features and a good user interface. They still don't have advertising, but I'm not sure they need the money as they will get it when people go to Gmail or Youtube anyway.

My current (dead tree) reading is Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. I've been interested in on-line collaboration for some years. It covers more than just traditional wikis. I've been an advocate of using a wiki at work for years, but some people just don't get it.

This book is a few years old and so it's interesting to see what has changed. Back in 2008 MySpace was the big player in social, having taken over from Friendster. Facebook was still in its early days and even Youtube was still fairly new.

The value of networking

A common feature of sites that pay users is that you get rewarded for recruiting people. This seems logical as they need to grow in order to make enough to pay the staff. Tsu and 3tags have the same model (spookily, rights-infringingly similar) where you get a portion of what your 'children' and their children make. The site keeps 10% in each case.

I've seen people on Tsu with networks of many thousands of people and this can make them several dollars per day. This only works if they are active. I have built a fairly large network myself, but only a small percentage are still active on the site and so I still only make pennies per day. This may change in time if more people join up or if those who joined before come back. There is definitely an issue with keeping people engaged. I suspect they give up when they don't make anything immediately. I think the two main issues are

1. Setting realistic expectations
2. I also think there is a language barrier. I've reached out to some of my children, but often they do not respond.

I wonder if some people join Tsu when they see a link just to see what it was as the main site is not visible to non-members. This seriously reduces how many will use it. I want my public content to be truly public, where Google etc can find it.

3tags is public and seems to benefit from that as people are making good money even though it has a lot less members than Tsu. I haven't managed to recruit many people and creating a post involves a little more work than Tsu, so I'm not doing much there. It's not really a social site. It's about sharing links and blog posts. I could blog there I suppose, but I prefer to be a little independent. Yes, I know Blogger is not under my control either. I do have my own site, but it's easier to blog here.

There's a new (ish) player at Bitlanders. Their USP is that they pay in Bitcoin. The site looks a little like Google+, but uses cartoon avatars. I think it's actually been around for about 6 months, but it's fairly quiet there. Some people have accumulated thousands of followers and may be making money, but there's not much discussion of that. A lot of the posts I see are about Judo. I think that's because some of the founders are into it. You get 'buzz' for viewing posts and videos. Each day that gets translated into some small amount of Bitcoin. If you recruit people you get a fixed 20% of what they make. I'll keep an eye on it, but I won't be visiting every day.

I've been neglecting things like blogging and pocasting lately. I need to drag myself away from the feeds and get back to that, as well as important things like playing my guitar.

Tsuitability

Yesterday Tsu was down for most of the day. I understand they were doing an upgrade, but some combination of circumstances, possibly involving heavy load, took it down. It seemed to be available for brief moments. There have been maintenance outages before, but I'd not seen it down for more than a few minutes.

This is obviously not a good thing for any site. People expect a site to always be available. I do not manage any busy sites, but I would expect there to be contingency plans to switch back to a working system if something goes wrong, but maybe they don't have the resources for this.

I expect everyone took a hit on their earnings for the day. Mine were down to a third of the previous day, but that's no big deal for me, and even the big guns would probably only earn a few dollars less.

I hope this will not deter people. Every business has teething troubles. They say they added more servers. I think they use Amazon S3.

Meanwhile, a new social site called 3tags has appeared recently. Their revenue sharing model seems to be identical to Tsu, but I've seen a report that people have made more per view. It's not a clone. I like that their public posts can be seen without logging in. That's not true for Tsu. I don't know if I will join. I'm lacking on time to play.

Another new site is Synereo. I'm not totally clear on how it will work, but you can currently buy into it by purchasing their 'AMP' tokens that you can use to make your content more visible there. You can buy with Bitcoin, but I don't have the funds available right now. I'll keep an ear out for opinions.

There are many social sites out there, but they have to reach a critical mass to keep going. Nobody wants to go where they won't find their friends or leave a site that already has them. I think it will take a lot to get most people to leave Facebook and Twitter. Those companies are so big that it's hard to see them failing. Mind you, Friendster, MySpace and others lost out, but I don't think they were ever that big.

We live in interesting time. There are no precedents for the modern internet.