New social networking site www.lindaikejisocial.com just got a feature on CNN. Yay! Read the article below...
Love her or not, she's one of Africa's most famous news and gossip writers. Now she's hoping to take on Facebook with her very own social network, which she says hit 50,000 sign-ups on the first day.
Linda Ikeji, a former model from Lagos, Nigeria, says her social network, LIS (Linda Ikeji Social) has something others lack: a one-stop shop for everything online.
"About 30-40 million Nigerians are now online, and they go through so many sites," Ikeji told CNN.
"They go to Facebook for connecting with friends. They come to my blog to read the news. They buy and sell things and go to places like Nairaland where they exchange opinions."
Just six days in, the network has 86,000 followers. Within the next five years, Ikeji said she hopes to be the new Facebook.
"Facebook is my competition," said the businesswoman, who is famous for her tabloid reporting, which many have criticized for promoting gossip and lacking in credibility.
In 2014 her blog came under scrutiny amidst allegations of plagiarism and unfair usage of images which led to the blogging platform Blogger, run by Google, temporarily taking her website offline.
Paying the popular
Apart from her controversial ways, she differs from Facebook in another major way, however. Her plan is to pay people who gain a lot of followers on the site.
"Once they have 50,000 followers on their page, we will automatically start monetizing it. That means we will put our client's banners on the page and pay you a commission from what they pay us."
The cash incentives are paid out to the so-called 'wallet' -- a section on the network where people add their bank account details.
It remains to be seen if anyone will hit that high. For now, she will pay out a weekly share of her advertising revenue to the most popular accounts, she says.
"Next week we are putting N20,000 ($63) each into 50 people's wallets," Ikeji said.
The network also plans to pay users N8,000 (around $25) for original news content.
The aim of the business is to give back to the online community.
The strategy could mean good money for users, and the social network who gets help with attracting people to sign-up. A win win, she explains.
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