It would be reasonable to think that a major reason why Friendster is alive today (despite making what some call a huge blunder) because of its large number of Filipino users and operators. While MySpace barely made a footprint here, and even if Multiply is steadily winning converts with its vastly better features, Friendster continues to be the social networking site of choice for most Filipinos.

But a new player may change all that, and perhaps even spell the end of Friendster. Yuwie is a social networking site that promises to pay you for your participation. Using what’s quickly becoming a traditional business model—offering free content supported by advertising—Yuwie will apparently pay users a small share of the income the site generates from selling ad space.

Get Paid for “Hanging Out”

In other words, Yuwie will pay you (through PayPal or a mailed check) every time people look at your user profile, and for referrals. If, for example, you click on this referral link to sign up for the service, the referrer (me) gets paid for your activity. Meaning any time you get viewed or convince someone else to sign up, both you and your referrer earn some money. Kinda reminds you of multi-level marketing right?

In any case, the prospect of making money simply from posting pictures, adding friends, and writing short notes will certainly appeal to Friendster users, some of whom spend hours coming up with the perfect profile, getting their details right, and choosing the right pictures to upload for everyone to see. The easy money promise of Yuwie may attract a lot of converts.

Too Good to be True?

Still, Yuwie’s premise simply sounds too good to be true, and that impression may be the social networking site’s greatest challenge. If they’re really on the level, how do they convince people that they are? How will they counter the inevitable arrival of bad faith operators, who may try to artificially boost their personal traffic levels for more earnings. Already I’m swamped with numerous friend requests from people I don’t even know, probably because they want me to look at their site and thus increasing their promised income.

I’m taking a wait-and-see approach; so long as I don’t have to reveal anything personal, I lose nothing right?

I leave with some advice for Yuwie: the smell of money may not be enough to retain users, especially if your site doesn’t offer that many social networking features. I continue to use Multiply because it does a great job of handling my favorite pictures, music, and even video, three features that Yuwie sorely lacks.