Tokoni Takes Storytelling in New Direction - Monetizing Tokoni's Content
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So everybody has a story. But they're all on different topics. How do you monetize a site like that? For the moment, at least, Tokoni doesn't seem to be doing that. I didn't notice any ads. This being the Internet, however, that's likely to change.
One reviewer suggested that Tokoni might work out some kind of revenue-sharing agreement with its members. In exchange for permission to post some kind of advertising either next to, or within, a story, the writer gets a share of the revenue. How many writers telling their stories out of love would turn down the possibility of getting a little money on the side for it?
Matthew Humphries, writing for Geek.com, noted other ways that Tokoni might generate revenue: “With such a heavy eBay involvement...you'd expect some kind of buying service to spring up too. It could be that they will start offering story collections in book form, or even launch a store for users to buy books and other items related to their interest areas and stories they have written.” As near as I can tell, there's nothing in the user agreement that prevents Tokoni from doing this.
Certainly the people at Tokoni understand the potential of advertising. I first heard about the community through an ad on LiveJournal. I would call that some very well-targeted advertising.
Tokoni also has a valuable audience on its hands. Writing a story to share with others can be a cathartic experience, one that users will want to have more than once – and reading other people's stories can be by turns enlightening, amusing, entertaining, and many other things depending on the story. Above all, a well-told story invokes an emotional reaction, and to judge from cave paintings, we've been telling stories since before we could really talk. How much do you suppose an advertiser would pay to reach an emotionally engaged, carefully targeted audience? Tokoni may not become the next Facebook or Myspace, but I expect its story will be filled with success.
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