This might be totally obnoxious, but I’m going to give it a try. Randy Morin of the RSS Blog began an experiment recently where he gives a free book from Amazon.com to the person who sends him the best link via del.icio.us by tagging it for:randymorin. Similar to Engadget Mobile giveaways, where a new phone is given to one random person who comments after a particular post. Those posts get thousands of comments.

I think that’s a pretty cool idea. It’s like in SnowCrash where people suck up “intelligence” information freelance about everything, submit it to the Central Information Agency (privitized CIA) and get paid whenever someone pays the CIA to access their intel. Hmmm…maybe that’s frightening.

Regardless, let’s try it.

If people tag their favorite online productivity product, service or application for Web 2.0 style info-management/research with the tag tools4marshallk – I’ll pick my favorite one of the month and the person who submitted it gets one year of premium subscription to any web service of their choice on me, up to fifty bucks. For two runners-up I’ll pitch in twenty bucks towards premium subscription to a web service of your choice. High stakes stuff, huh? I think it could prove more than worth it. And fun! At the end of this month I’ll profile the winners, their submissions and their selected services. Unless I have less than 20 submissions, at which point I’ll extend it to one month from this post. It’ll be great, and did I mention fun? Since it won’t be a for:marshallkirkpatrick tag, anyone can see the submissions here. Heck, if this works well then we could all vote on which submissions are best. But this whole idea might be really stupid, or at least in need of continual evolution.

Update: the tagging has begun! Check out the first submissions at http://del.icio.us/tag/tools4marshallk

I read that Randy was deluged with submissions, so I want to be specific and say let’s just tag a certain type of thing. Here’s some examples of things I love and would have been thrilled to find in a process like this:
blummy.com
MonitorThis
Stephen Downes’ OPML Generator
Feed Digest

Those have all made a big difference in my life and work, so I’d gladly help other people subscribe to some web services they might not have otherwise in exchange for getting turned on to some more things like the above list. What kinds of services might you subscribe to if you submit a winning tool?
How about…
Flickr
StatCounter, or a better blog traffic stat program.
NetNewsWire or FeedDemon
FeedRinse
Something tasty from eHub

Oh there are so many options – and this could be the meme with legs to turn us all on to so many more! I think people should pay money for premium level service of good apps (not internet service! apps on it!) because innovators deserve to make money and financial support = more innovation.

Ok, so that tag again is tools4marshallk – but of course they are tools for everyone, ’cause everyone can see all the submissions.

I do reserve the right to disqualify you if you are submitting huge numbers of stupid links. Maybe this won’t work and there won’t even be 20 after a month? I hope not. Just keep it in the back of your mind when you’re tagging cool things you see.

It’s an experiment, and perhaps one evaluating the efficacy of a hybrid social good/personal gain model.

Tags: Web2.0, collaboration, contests, applications