Quick Observation: Virtual Currency Leads To Real World Ad Revenue For This Chinese Web Company

Posted by Joel

MOP.com's renrou sousuo marketplace

å¸®å¿™æ‰¾éª—æˆ‘4000å—é’±çš„å¥³çš„ï¼ˆ120000MP)
(Help me find the woman who cheated me out of 4000RMB (120000MP reward)

Over the course of my research for last weekâ€™s post on renrou sousuo I came across this article on Sina Finance. MOP.com (çŒ«æ‰‘) one of the largest Chinese BBS, media and renrou sousuo portals came up with a very clever way to build an active audience and subsequently obtain advertising revenue.

MOP.com created a virtual currency called MP that users spend on a variety of services offered by the site.Â MP usages vary ranging from a virtual stock exchange to reward money for people who help out on a renrou sousuo. You can even use the MP currency to â€œshut upâ€ another user that you donâ€™t want to hear comments from on the site (that person can also pay MP out of his own pocket to gain his speaking privileges back).Â To limit the amount of MP in the marketplace MOP.com collects a percentage fee on all forms of MP exchange and puts that money in its virtual â€œreserves.â€

The end result of this virtual marketplace is a highly active user base that helps generate revenue for MOP.com through advertising. I found this to be a very creative way to both digitally and literally monetize their website as â€œhow to monetize?â€ is a difficult question that many web 2.0 companies have yet to find the answer to.

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