The Phenomenon of Yuwie

 I joined Yuwie in August of 2007, shortly after it's launch. I had been active on Yahoo 360 and was content to blog and make good friends there. One of those friends messaged me about a new site that was actually paying it's members to blog and browse the site. The concept of getting paid to have fun intrigued me, so I signed on, created a profile and began my Yuwie journey.

At first Yuwie was only a diversion from my main social networking on Yahoo, but it soon became what I referred to as my internet 'home'.

Of course there were technical problems at first, but Yuwie members were quick to forgive. We were pumped up and enthusiastic about making our 'referral tree' grow!

Yuwie pays per 1000 page view and boy were we viewing pages...adding friends and referrals meant you received more page views, so we added friends and invited others like crazy. Clubs were formed for just such a purpose.

Payment on Yuwie is determined not just by the user's views but also from referral's page views. They pay 10 levels deep, with the first three levels paying 10%, levels three through seven paying 4%, levels eight and nine paying 10% and a whopping 30% for level ten. I still haven't figured out how the revenue sharing rate is determined...it has something to do with what advertisers are willing to pay for placing ads.

Soon it was discovered that some were using 'bots' to surf the site. We suffered through the addition of 'captchas' to keep those using bots from bringing down the RSR (revenue sharing rate). Everyone agreed, Yuwie was going to make us rich and we supported whatever the administrator did with the site to make it so. The site had it's growing pains but members were motivated to see it through.

Y Guy (aka Korry) seemed accessable to the members and willing to do what it took to make being a member of Yuwie fair and profitable. There were some disagreements on what needed to be done to make it a smoother ride but for the most part we rallied behind our leader.

I soon became a very active member. And there were active members joining every day. Our Alexa ranking was in the top 6000 websites on the web. We all felt that if we could just get enough referrals we could become rich!

I found after a year or so,  that unless you were very competitive and market saavy you would not make much money on Yuwie. Problems with spam was one of the first major hurdles the site faced. Members were accused of spamming the web with our sign up urls. This was addressed and members adjusted their recruiting methods. It signaled though, the beginning of a downward turn in our Alexa ranking. I decided I was not good at the marketing end anyway and made up my mind to concentrate on making real friends, of which I found many.

The RSR was, when I started in Aug. of 2007, at $.47 per 1000 page views. After I'd been there for a year it had fallen to $.34 per 1000 page views. As of March's payout it is at $.27. This is one reason I decided I was there for friendship, not money. Why it fell is a long story and one I don't fully understand. We were told to click on ads, add the new Yuwie toolbar and patronize the Yuwie store to raise the RSR.

As with any social experience people gravitated to friends with similar motivations and interests. There are two major goups on Yuwie. Those that are there to network for business reasons and those that are there for 'friends only'.

In the beginning members reached out with helpful information, blogging on how to navigate and use the site. People reached out to others with advice and enthusiasum was high.

Now, after almost two years,this member of Yuwie has lost her enthusiasum. After seeing the formation of cliques and the site's administrators aparent lack of motivation for dealing with their negative influences....accusations of some major  cheating that is going on....I have decided to become inactive on Yuwie.

Many feel the same way but stay hoping to change the trend.

You may say how juvenille. And you'd be correct.  I am a member of a club on Yuwie called Yunion and on the friend's list of Yunion Steward, a profile that was set up to help members counteract this negativity. I had been very active in exposing the rude - crude behavior that went on behind the scenes at Yuwie in my blogs. After writing seveal blogs revealing this type of behavior I had become the target of gossip, harrassment and down right rude messages. I was going to delete my account entirely, but memories of better days on Yuwie and the requests of many friends, kept me from deleting my account entirely.

The administrator who at first seemed accessible, is now threatening to censor notice board posts and blogs pertaining to any controversy. He demands proof of cheating and bullying, but when proof is sent it is ignored or not acted on.

You would have to have experienced the beginnings of Yuwie to understand the members loyalty to one group or the other. As I've mentioned....two groups formed at first. The money seekers who were there to make money. And the friends only who were there to make lifelong friends. Both groups have very determined and loyal members.

I wouldn't want you to stay away from Yuwie or social networking in general. My purpose in writing this hub is to reveal a trend in social sites that pay...where competition often brings out the worst in people. Yet,  if you are kind, friendly, helpful and value honesty and integrity you should be fine. I left because I could not abide the administrator's threatened censorship of blogs and what seems like favoritism towards one group. I will continue to monitor this through friends still on the site and hopefully their influence can change things. I remain loyal to them and that goal.

Yuwie remains a great site for meeting talented and friendly people. As with any social situation you must be careful who you open up to. It is my opinion that people across the web are waking up to the power of social networking to learn, to grow and to market their ideas and their wares. I only hope that those who use and abuse this new power will be exposed and shamed and eventually left out.