Gather is another bogging site and they just got an influx of funding.

With the rate that new services are coming out it’s not a question of if you product good or cool, but is it good or cool enough to give users incentive to use or switch to you.

Gather.com has taken the approach of rewarding users

Being part of such a community is reward enough. But you’ll also get Gather Points(TM) just for participating online. Inviting new users and submitting outstanding content will earn you points.

I’ve always liked this idea but lets be honest any user that can be rewarded to any substantial degree would probably just publish on their own.

I would say this could even hurt them, because it changes things from an intrinsic (doing it for fun) to extrinsic motivation (doing it for rewards). People may then if they find out they can’t earn much leave because they lose motivation. It’s sort of the same principle as when hockey players no longer enjoy the game (or enjoy it less) once it becomes their job.

Just as a side note does anybody remember the free web host tera-share? They offered their users money for the page views on their freely hosted sites, I believe the company eventually went under.