Monopowiki: The Free Paid Wiki?
I know. I know. It’s just another paid wiki trying to make a quick buck online. That was my initial reaction to Monopowiki too, because the fundamental business model is much the same: People pay a set amount of money to own the content on a wiki page. There is one very significant difference, however, and that’s what this review is going to explore.
What is Monopowiki?
Unlike other paid wiki sites, Monopowiki allows people to contribute without having to buy a page. The rationale is that this would encourage more active participation from the online community and, more importantly, it would encourage interlinking among pages. This latter element has been largely missing from other paid wiki sites and it’s the thing that makes wikis so powerful and popular.
But if you can edit the pages — including the ability to add advertising and affiliate links — without having to dish out any cash, what motivation would you have to buy a page?
When you purchase a page, you gain complete control over that page. That’s where the “monopoly” part of the Monopowiki name comes from. For example, the make money online page has apparently been purchased by someone, because it is locked from editing. With other paid wikis, you buy a page for 10, 20, 30 years at a time. With Monopowiki, the $25 fee only provides you with a monopoly over a single page for one year.
Only pages that have not yet been purchased can be edited by anyone.
Design and User Interface
The layout of Monopowiki is virtually identical to the countless other paid wiki sites on the net. The aesthetics are not a selling point whatsoever, because every page looks just like every page on every other paid wiki site. Here’s the page for blog, for instance. Yeah, it’s pretty boring.
At the time this review was written, the page for “blog” was still open. This means that anyone can edit it… until someone coughs up the $25 to grab the “blog” monopoly. The page editing interface is straightforward and looks identical to the editing interface on every other paid wiki. You get buttons for bold, italic, hyperlinks, images, and so on.
Before you are able to edit any page, however, you will need to sign up for a free account. Getting an account only takes five seconds. Both an e-mail address and a real name are optional, so all you need to provide is a username and password.
As you can probably imagine, this ease of registration opens the door for spammers and mischief makers. The engine will track your IP, but it wouldn’t take much for someone to viciously deface one of the free pages. They say that they will be instituting editorial controls in the future, but they’re keeping pretty lax to encourage the creation of “a significant index of articles quickly.”
Just Another Paid Wiki
As much as Monopowiki tries to convince us otherwise, it’s really not all that different from all the other paid wikis on the net. They hoped to marry all the best features of a paid wiki with a free one, but by having a paid element at all takes away from the integrity of the information found within. It also doesn’t help that Monopowiki looks like every other paid wiki too.
The Monopowiki $10,000 Giveaway
If you want to own a page on Monopowiki but don’t want to fork over the $25 to buy a page, then you might want to check out their massive $10,000 giveaway. Monopowiki is giving away 400 pages for one year.
All you have to do is blog about Monopowiki before April 24th and submit the link through this form. You can also check that page for more details. Winners will be announced on or around May 2… I guess this is in case there are more than 400 entries.
- Posted in Make Money Online, Reviews, The Net
- 51 comments what's your take?
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I like the unique aspect - thanks for the heads up!
Reply to this commentI’ll definitely be checking out that giveaway
Good lord I’ve created a monster.
Reply to this commentThat you have.
Reply to this commentI wonder how many different paid wiki’s there will be 5 years from now. They’ll probably go the way of Blogger and pixel ads…see ya!
Reply to this commentyeah I agree with that … the number of wikis are increasing .. I don’t even bother with them anymore.
Reply to this commentIt burns! I agree though. It’s great that there are people trying to come up with original ideas, but it just looks like a typical paid wiki to me. No MAJOR differences.
Reply to this commentLooks interesting at first. But I agree. It’s no different from all the other wiki pages.
Reply to this commentI dont understand how it is free ?
Reply to this commentWe have to buy a page, right ?
No, you don’t. You only have to buy a page if you want to have complete control over it. All other pages are free to be edited by anyone. This means that if a page does not yet exist, you can create (and edit) it for free.
Reply to this commentBut I dont want anybody else to edit my page. Why should I allow other to edit ? What makes sense here ?
So definitely one will have to buy.
Reply to this commentAllowing others to edit pages are the basis of wikis…
Reply to this commentSo, let me get this straight. I create and edit the page and maybe put some ads on it and then someone comes along and removes my ads and puts their ads in?
Am I missing something?
Reply to this commentThat’s what I got out of it. Seems rather silly.
Reply to this commentOh you mean it is a free for all spammers heaven? Good, maybe now they will leave my forums alone.
Reply to this commentOh no, not another one.
Reply to this commentNot much to look at for right now. They must have just put the site up.
Reply to this commentThe blog entry on the site says April 8th and they have been purchasing some reviews at some sites to gain some exposure.
Reply to this comment~Terry
I must admit this is the first time I’d heard of “paid” wikis.
Do any of these paid wikis even have a prayer of displacing a free resource such as wikipedia ???
MrAchievement
Reply to this commentStanley Bronstein
Attorney, CPA, Author, Blogger & Professional Motivational Speaker
check out milliondollarwiki. This kid has made $128,000 to date.
Reply to this commentYeah, the kid (Graham) is the only one who has made that kind of money.
Reply to this commentIt may work but the business model has flaws. What are the exact cost?
Reply to this commentIt’s just like the million dollar website, everyone tries it but not all will go viral.
Reply to this commentfree?
Reply to this commentis it true???????
free?????really???
It is free edit till someone buy the page… good ideea but how will control the spam pages?
Reply to this commentIn my point of view, this will be a mess. They will attract spammers and here we go… Spamming the whole site with affiliate links and building their backlinks.
Reply to this commentPeople will do anything for money these days! Even copy a copy!
Reply to this commentAfter I saw how quarterwiki went, I think I will simply eliminate wiki word from my dictionary (not to mention that wikipedia is ranking for all important keywords, thats a +++ reason to hate “wiki”).
Reply to this commentI don’t like the fact the you don’t need an e-mail to register, spammers are surely going to be busy for a while. But you never know, maybe if they redesign the sire, remove the google ads, then it will look more profeesional
Reply to this commentI just created Park Place AND put a hotel on it. Anyone that goes there owes me $1500
Reply to this commentGo directly to jail…do not pass go…do not collect $200.
You need Boardwalk and Park Place before you can put hotels on it
I’ll sell it to you for 1 Million Dollars
Reply to this comment~Terry
They are free to visitors I think, for publishers no it is not as always.
Reply to this commentLooked interesting, not so much anymore!
Reply to this commentLetme get this straight. I get the page for free, edit it, ad my own ads and then someone else comes along and takes my ads off and puts their own on?
Am I missing something?
Reply to this commentThat’s funny how you phrase it. But that appears to be what it’s all about. Not very enticing (except for that $10,000 giveaway).
Reply to this commentFor the paid pages, you have control of the content, so if you ad your ads to it, no one else can take them off. For the free pages, its a risk you run, but hey, right now only about half the pages have ads on them, and looking at the logs, this hasn’t happened. You’re still getting more than what you paid for.
Reply to this commentWhile it sounds interesting, we have not seen how it can help to pull in more traffic and sales. Good to observe for now.
Reply to this commentWhy pay something just to edit a page in the first place?
Reply to this commentDoes not seem very valuable except to the guys who made the site trying to make a quick buck.
Reply to this commentGood idea paying people to blog in imaginary money! Genioz
Reply to this commentThe $10,000 giveaway sounds interesting and enticing. I think that’s very much worth it.
Reply to this commentIt still really depends on how famous the site is going to be
Reply to this commentForgot to add, I think the whole idea is still just another get rich quick scheme
Reply to this commentI don’t know, I’m not too impressed by the $10,000 giveaway. Should you really be charging $25 per page if you have to give 400 of them away?
Reply to this commentMy page over at the Million Dollar Wiki still brings me traffic on a daily basis but I guess maybe I got lucky with that one. Don’t think I’d plough anymore money into anyone elses get rich quick schemes.
Reply to this commentAnother person monetizing the wiki… The name is a mouthful imo.
Shudogg Dot Com - Make Money Online Blogging
Reply to this commentJohn - what word are you getting with the $10,000 giveaway?
The word Wiki was supposed to mean that it was editable by lots of folks - these really aren’t wikis at all. Once no one but one person can make changes to a page, it’s reallly no longer a wiki.
Reply to this commentI was just going to pass on this post, but contest attracted me! 400 pages giveaway!
Reply to this commentI agree about the spammers. Soon, they’ll be seeing spam for viagra & the like. It’ll suck for them.
Reply to this commentAnd another thing - I wonder if they can get into trouble for trademark infringement. Of course their name is a little different, but some people are touchy about these things.
Reply to this comment