Someone I know got kicked off Twitter the other day. Afterwards, they sent me a link to a social media network I had never heard of called Tsu. It has some interesting features, not the least of which is revenue sharing. You see, Tsu sells ads like Twitter and Facebook do, but they share 45% of the profits with their userbase. After getting into a battle with Facebook over their links being blocked, Zuckerberg actually runs ads on there now himself. I’ve been messing around with it for a couple hours and while it shows some promise, it also has a speech clause in it’s terms of service that is a little disconcerting.
Here’s those terms…
To be fair, Twitter itself has a similar section, but I would prefer to see things be a little bit looser. I have seen some anti-SJW stuff on there though, as well as criticism of Muslims and stuff like that. I think anything short of direct calls for violence should be OK. To be honest with you guys, you pretty much have to watch what you say on all social media nowadays. It’s not right, but self-censorship is a reality.
The reason I think having a presence on Tsu could be important. For one, it costs nothing to go sign-up. Also, the more pressure there is on places like Twitter and Facebook, the better. I can’t say if this place will end up being some savior or refuge, but it has a mobile app and the design is pretty nice. Plus, you can share in the potential profits, so that’s also a silver lining.
Here’s a snippet from a recent Forbes report on the service…
tsu is only about 12 months old and yet has amassed some impressive numbers; 28 million visitors in its first year, over 1 billion pages views and more than five million registered accounts around the world (bar mainland China). One-third of tsu’s traffic comes from North America, one-third is European/Australian/Russian/Japanese, and the last third is from the Middle East and the rest of Asia. tsu is also working with some heavy-hitters when it comes to ad partners; Lyft, Twitter Facebook (yes Facebook advertise on Tsu), Verizon, AT&T, BMW, Google, Jet.com, Amazon, Clash of Clans, OpenTable, Make-A-Wish, St. Jude’s, Pepsi, Netflix, Showtime, FT, New York Times, Adobe, American Express, Hootsuite, Hotwire, Hewlett Packard, SONY, Seamless, Zappos, Birchbox, Squarespace and even Donald Trump…
tsu sells ads that go around the pieces content creators post and money is then deposited into an account of the content creators choosing (or they can donate it to charity). tsu has a three-tier strategy when it comes to advertising. 1) tsu sells direct to brands wanting to advertise 2) tsu allows users to boost posts and 3) tsu works with ad networks and exchanges to ensure they can scale and address each geography efficiently…
While no-one yet is buying new homes from single tsu posts, single posts can garner between $50 to $600 per post on the day of the post (note: final amounts will be higher as tsu gives users money beyond the first day). Andrew Fromm is a good example, known on tsu as @Afromm, Fromm is a songwriter and made more in one year than Pharrell made from music streaming service Pandora.
So, it’s at least worth checking out, in my opinion. If you’d like to do so, the link is HERE. My name on there is @TheRalphRetort.
