Be careful with introducing monetary rewards. Rewards can sometimes have weird psychological effects on people, and may actually lessen their willingness to contribute because the task comes to be seen more as "work" than pastime [1] .
Small side-note : A special property of the Stackoverflow system is that the user's profile can actually gain a value on its own, by reflecting so well on the user that it can be included in a CV. This value is very difficult to recreate for most on-line communities. I believe that Stackoverflow profiles have become a new hunting ground for head hunters to find suitable candidates.
Nothing (except for badges/karma which are intangible and cannot be translated to $$).
Once you start offering anything tangible to me, I start thinking about how does it translate to my hourly rate and this is where you will fail.
So much has been written about why Amazon has the best reviews ever without ever paying a cent. Why Wikipedia is the greatest encyclopedia ever with last (and only) paid contributor back in 2005. etc etc...
If you start offering people something in exchange for their contribution, you will fail. Just look at Google Knol.
Not for a community I'd like to be part of.
Every single one of these 'rewards' leads to people trying to game the system, which leads to noise. You know the drill:
- SO is full of people that jump at new answers, try to 'win' by submitting early and editing their answer later. "More text formatting = better". Needs. More. Bullet. Points.
- HN submissions are 'valuable' so that we had automated submissions or bookmarklets in the past.
That's karma alone, and your other suggestions are even worse in my book, because they could be exchanged for money much easier (iPad, deals, your direct exchange option) and therefor could be gamed as 'part time jobs'.
Is that bad? Depends, I guess, on your target audience. In my opinion the people that go for there rewards are usually not (in general) part of your preferred audience. And since you'll have a hard time judging quality in a community site the people that push out most (even if it is crappy/below average or borderline spam) win.
I know of one mountainbike forum which from time to time put interviews with famous users (for example because of very good riding video, etc) on the main page. I think this is a good opportunity for good riders to find sponsors and so on.
Translated to something like stack overflow this would be a good way for top contributors to get new clients/project/whatever and do some general advertisement for their own company.
edit: Examples in German:
> Do you think contributors of a community website should be rewarded?
No. A real community (that actually cares for each other) works "for free"—the compensation is in improving the community.
I just wrote a hasty post about why I help others just yesterday (http://jnorthrop.tumblr.com/post/10094419737/karma).
You don't list it among your options but helping others has basic intrinsic rewards that adds to your own self-satisfaction. I help when and where I can and I enjoy it. What is more enjoyable, using some specialized expertise for an hour to help an appreciative entrepreneur or playing Call of Duty?
I sound like a new age hippie (which I am not) but I wake up everyday feeling good about the previous day.
It depends on a lot of things!
We'll assume that whatever it is you are having people do is something that is intrinsically rewarding, benefits them, and is not taking up their entire life. We're not talking about having interns come in and work 8 hr days on projects you specify for no pay and you retain original copyright ownership as work for hire without pay. It's more like Stack Overflow answers.
As has been pointed out, in such a system by offering cold hard cash, you can and will attract gamers and the wrong element by paying, and you can and will also destroy the intrinsic motivation of the many sincere people who enjoyed contributing for free before.
At some level of contribution there needs to be pay off though, especially if you are directly monetizing contributions. I am thinking of youtube here. There are now professional youtube performers, people who make a living writing original comedy and commentary and skits for youtube and earning money from the shared ad revenue. This is only done with top earners who are making enough from ads to actually be able to fund doing it as a full time job. The result has been higher quality material and more stickiness from popular contributors.
It all depends on what kind of community/website it is.
Communities like HN/StackOverflow - Why do people contribute here? Though there is reward system is in place here(karma) but I doubt if that acts as primary motivation. In such community, my contribution is your reward and your contribution is my reward. YC isn't getting any direct monitory benefits from HN but having a good successful community of hackers helps them indirectly in many ways. So, it's a win-win situation for everyone.
Products like Google, Gmail,Facebook etc. - Isn't it rewarding enough in itself to be able to use such excellent products free of cost(even if it comes with minimal text ads)?
The bottom line is that if you are using a website because it is providing some kind of value to you and your contribution is actually helping it in providing even more value back to users, you shouldn't think about monitory awards.
If it is not providing anything valuable, you won't be using it, even if it is free.
If you are getting paid for using something or contributing, it means the site in itself isn't that valuable to you. So, they lure you through monitory benefits. For example, paid surveys.
Offer users a competition. The competitive nature in most people can be enough motivation for them to work for free short-term.
A small prize/perk for the winners is good, but only if multiple users can't join together to increase their chances of winning.
Karma points is fine with me, but to me the real reward for helping others is in knowing that you've helped.
'The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit'. Nelson Henderson
I think that would lead to segregation and a feeling of resentment among individuals who feel like they've contributed significantly but haven't received anything.
Also, there is that paradoxical concept where it is pleasing to volunteer a service, but the minute you are paid anything, if it's not enough to make a happy life on, giving that service becomes disagreeable to the point where it seems that it's not worth doing. I can't remember the name for this or who came up with it.
It's an old, tired adage, but it's true: "Content is King".
On HN, obtaining topical, interesting news and conversation is the most rewarding and valuable thing that this site has to offer.
Your question shouldn't be "what can we give you" but rather "what can we do for you".
Here on HN, the answer will be a variety of ways to improve both the quality of the submissions and the conversation that surround them.
karma would be the best thing, IMHNO. it has no monetary value, but can have social value. the "free labour" to your site is just that - free(monetarily, anyway). it has no monetary value in and of itself. as others have pointed out, once you do start to assign monetary value to it, then greed begins to naturally take hold and people just game the system even more. someone who is a frequent contributor on many sites, though - they tend to acquire rep - on the internet, no less, and will naturally attract all the things that a good rep attracts, which some would say is worth far more than money.
think of it like this - when you play a game of Monopoly, you're playing for play money. you get rich in the game, but the money you earn there is worthless outside of the game. at best you might earn some rep among your friends for winning (more than likely tho, they're a little pissed at you for screwing them in the game in order to win), and even that is pretty worthless outside of your social circle.
take the same game and play it with real money, and now it is gambling. see the difference?
If I contribute, it's normally because I think I have something of value to offer that's otherwise missing. Passing up the opportunity to do that feels bad, which is my incentive to do it (although it's often outweighed by other factors). If I were instead motivated by the rewards you suggest I think the quality of my contributions would plummet dramatically even from its current mediocre level.
What about a relationship and contact with other cool people? I would be much more interested in contributing high quality content/interactions/whatever to a site if better contributions gave me more interaction with other top contributors in ways that were mutually beneficial.
A badge or Karma is fine for me, just the fact that they show that you are contributing and helping is fine with me.
But it doesn't only have to be when you provide time, peer-to-peer services could provide similar measures for bandwidth or computing-power.
I have created http://weekendhacker.net where people trade skills. I currently have +6500 designers and developers and more than 150 projects have been posted and found help so far.
Yes, Money , Swag , and Beta releases out the yang.
Watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
and kill the idea.
Maybe reward them with attention? Have a blog post that features a community member everyday or every week or an interview...
You have to be very careful when you start offering real rewards. People will game the system for free, but nothing like the level of gaming that goes on for a reward. You'll end up with absolute crap.
And don't assume that people 'working for free' are getting nothing of it. They obviously enjoy it, or they wouldn't do it. Offering a tangible reward will change their motivation.
The result of both of those is often losing your best, most loyal users.
Be very careful.