Credit for your Intels

The amount of credit you get for your intel varies according to the length and the rating it receives after screening. Credit for intel added is reflected in your account after the screening has been completed. A screening is complete after a minimum of 10 users have screened your intel. To avoid spamming a restriction of posting one intel at a time would be introduced after the beta stage. However, there are no restrictions yet. But please avoid spamming by copying from old blog posts to maintain the dignity of Qassia.

Affiliate Program That Really Pays

Referrals to Qassia

The more people join Qassia, the better it gets, so at this early stage of our existence, we are giving away insanely generous commissions for referrals to Qassia.

Right now, for every user you refer to Qassia, Q$100 will be credited to your account.

Don't miss the gold rush! It'll be a lot harder to earn Qassia dollars once we come out of beta testing and adjust our rates to a sensible level. January 2008 is a unique window in time during which you can easily and quickly amass a fortune.

To earn the referral commission, just point people to your user page, and wait for them to sign up and validate their email. It's that simple!

AWESOME BONUS You get a backlink to your user page from the user page of every user you refer. Wow!

Apart from the above, for the first 12 hours after signup, you will be paid $500 per referral that signs up under you, for the next 24 hours thereafter, you will be paid $200 per refferal and after the above 36 hours, you will get paid Qassian Dollars of $100 per referral.


Affiliate Program That Really Pays

Jobs and Career at Qassia

Qassia is also providing job opportunities as Investment Consultant. The details of Jobs and Placement is provided below.

Jobs at Qassia

We are in acute need of highly talented and hard-working brains to help build the fastest-growing website of all time.

Currently, our only opening is for Investment Consultant.

A number of further positions will be available as soon as we conclude negotiations for our first round of financing. All positions will intially be telecommuting positions, and almost all positions come with options. Most positions, except for system administration, will be flex-time.

More details will be posted as they become available.

Incidentally, we want all future team members to be passionate and enthusiastic supporters of the Qassia project, so one of the requirements will be to have amassed at least $5,000 Qassia dollars.

Position Available in Silicon Valley

We have an opening for an Investment Consultant. Your job is to talk to potential investors and others, and secure the funding to drive Qassia's growth.

Ideally, you will be located in Silicon Valley, and have been living there for many years. You should have the numbers of angels and VC's in your phone and know many of them personally.

Do you qualify? Write to Nick for details, using our Contact Form.


Affiliate Program That Really Pays

Intel and Screening of Intels

Qassia have given and are providing informations updating the status of members and their intels, do and do not's while posting intels and subsequent screening of intels. The details as provided at Qassia are listed hereunder:

One at a Time

We've noticed that quite a few users are rapidly firing off intel, mostly by copying and pasting numerous old blog posts of theirs within the space of a few minutes.

We would prefer to see original intel being added, since a blog post doesn't always make good intel. So in future, we may limit the number of intel you can add in any given time frame.

However, for now, the project is still small and young, and we don't want to do anything to discourage the submission of intel, irrespective of source.

So what we've done is, we've limited the number of intel you can have in the screening queue, to just one. This means that if one of your previous intel has not yet made it through the screening process, your later intel won't be available for screening - until, of course, the previous intel has been screened.

Disallowed Intel

Thank you to all the beta testers who have been screening intel. We are extremely pleased to report that the screening process works very well, in fact, far better than expected. We put this down to the fact that our users are all intelligent and responsible people, and we consider ourselves extremely lucky.

We have received some suggestions to remove certain types of intel. However, since the screening process works well, there is no need for Qassia staff to censor intel.

Except, that is, one kind. Please refrain from adding intel about Qassia. We would like to emphasize that we do not mind criticism, and users are of course free to say what they like on their websites and blogs about us, so it is not that we are muzzling our users. In any case, the intel about Qassia we've come across has generally been positive.

The problem is that intel ABOUT Qassia ON Qassia is somewhat like holding a mirror up to a mirror; it is confusing. Intel about Qassia may give other users the wrong impression that the author of the intel is representing or officially associated with Qassia.

For the reasons stated above, we will henceforth remove all intel about Qassia. Thank you for your understanding.

Note that you may, of course, add intel about other sites such as Squidpoo or Flubpages.

Screening Remarks, Now Available

When screening intel, you can now give the author of the intel feedback about why you graded it the way you did.

This is in response to a suggestion from a user.


I'd like to suggest you implement a way for us to give feedback on our reasons for the grade we give 'intel'.

There are times I'd like to give a higher grade, but spelling errors or poor grammar dictate I grade lower...

So we did just that. Thanks to Heather for the suggestion.

Note that remarks should not be confused with comments. Remarks are optional and should only be entered by the screener if the screener has a definite suggestion on how to improve the intel.

Also please remember that the screening process is anonymous, so please don't enter your names in the remarks box.

To see remarks, if any, go to your "My Intel" page. If the grade of your intel is underlined and clickable, you can see the remarks by clicking on it.

Affiliate Program That Really Pays

Refer Family Members to Qassia

Referring a Family Member?

We've received quite a few emails from people referring their partner, parent, child, or the guy who is sharing the sofa.

The problem is that we have a number of checks to prevent people creating multiple accounts for themselves and ramping up credit for referrals, so if you refer someone who uses your Internet connection, or God forbid, your computer, then the system freaks out.

We have given this issue some thought and here's what we'll do. You will be able to refer family members and so on, but you won't get credit for the referral. This is a compromise from shutting out referrals to family members entirely, and allowing multiple accounts from the same source.

The new system will be up within 36 hours. Watch this space.

Welcome, Family Members

As announced yesterday, family members (or anyone else using your Internet connection) can now sign up via the link on your user page.

However, no referral fees will be credited to your account. This is to mitigate the problem of duplicate account creation by unscrupulous users.

Note that you CANNOT sign up if you are using the same computer as the person who referred you. Do not worry about this. If you are sharing a computer, you might as well share the Qassia account.

Affiliate Program That Really Pays

How will you earn joining Qassia

Watch the Dollars Pile Up!

The idea is to earn Qassia dollars. The more Qassia dollars you have in your account, the better your websites will rank in our directory (which will be available soon). So how do you get your hands on the good stuff? There are three things you can do.

Refer a friend to Qassia. When someone signs up via your user page, you get credit once the user validates his/her email. Right now we are on an upward growth trajectory, and are giving away insanely huge commissions. Note that these "Gold Rush" rates won't last forever.

• 12 hours - for 12 hours after you yourself signed up, get an incredible Q$500 per signup.
• 24 hours - for the following 24 hours, get no less than $200 per signup, double the usual rate.
• Thereafter - get a still respectable $100 per conversion.

By the way, an added bonus of referring someone is that the referred person's user page will have a backlink towards your user page. This lets your page punch above its weight.

Screen other people's intel. Intel has to be screened before being published. It's quick work: just take a look at the intel, then select a rating from A ~ F. You get credit no matter how you rate it, but if the rating you assign is close to the final score, you get a bonus. You also get an addition bonus for being the first screener to screen an intel.

Add intel. In the long-term, this is the best way of earning credits. The longer your intel, and the higher the rating it receives, the more credit goes into your account. And every intel you add will have a link to your website. So the more intel the add, the better your websites will rank, and the more intel you have, the more backlinks you will have pointing to your websites.

Unlike real dollars, Qassia dollars are easy enough to earn. Who will be the first Qassia millionaire? Or should we say billionaire? Better start earning now and get a head start - the earlier the better because sooner or later we will be adjusting our credit payout rates, most probably downwards.

Affiliate Program That Really Pays

Advantages of Joining Qassia

When Momentum Beats Relevance

So you've developed a site. A good site - perhaps even a great site. You are excited about the prospects of traffic, rave reviews, and, possibly, riches. But when you release your site.... it will get exactly nowhere.

You soon find out that getting the word out about a website is even more difficult and time-consuming than creating it in the first place.

There is a reason for this, sort of. There are literally billions of websites on the web. The most common way of getting at the websites is via a search engine, specifically Google. Google somehow has to determine which websites to lead people to, and because of the sheer number of sites, Google has set the bar high. VERY high. That means, if you have a new and unknown site, it's basically dead in the water.

So you learn about SEO and promoting sites. What everyone will tell you is that you need great content, and backlinks. What they don't tell you is that you also need patience. A LOT of patience. Because, unless your site has nude photos of Britney Spears, it takes forever to build the required number of backlinks to get anywhere. You can have great content, but in most niches, great content is just the beginning, because the momentum gained by established sites triumphs over freshness and relevance.

"Dude, Get Some Good Quality Backlinks"

Yeah, right. Easier said than done. These days it's basically impossible to get backlinks.

Bloggers want to get paid. Directories, too, want to get paid. Even if you are willing to pay, the link won't carry much weight, because selling links is a no-no. Free directories, like DMOZ, take forever and a day to add your site, and adding your site to a multitude of smaller directories is as time-consuming and unproductive as exchanging links. If you go to a forum to tell people about your site, well, you can't tell anyone right away without getting banned or accused of spamming, because forums require you to have been an active member for some time. Those forums that don't have strict rules are flooded with advertisements by people who are just as desperate as you. You can add your link to the Wikipedia, but it will be "no-follow" AND it will get deleted within 24 hours. You can leave a comment on somebody's blog, but either the blog doesn't carry any weight, or your backlink is - surprise, surprise - "no-follow" as well.

There are two ways to deal with this issue.

One is to be patient - VERY patient, and spend a long time, literally months, building backlinks by exchanging links, and slowly promoting your site, little by little. Then, if you really do have good content, your site will eventually get the traffic it deserves. But in that amount of time, a sailing ship of old could have circumnavigated the globe, TWICE. By the time your site becomes popular, the content will be out of date. But you will be disillusioned and weary because nobody looked at your original content, and you won't have any enthusiasm left to add new content.

Consequently, many people just give up and splurge on advertising. Most site owners are not large companies with large budgets. So they go for programs like Google Adwords, which does not require a large outlay. That is why Google Adwords earns in excess of $1 billion every three months.

Is it possible to get good traffic, without paying for it?

Clearly, Google needs some competition in the traffic direction business. And Google is getting it. Sites like del.icio.us and Stumble Upon have become popular because people want to get at interesting sites more quickly, before the sites are several years old.

But while del.icio.us and Stumple Upon are great sites, these do not help the owners of commercial sites. If you have a site about real estate, or ball bearings, or landscaping services, people aren't likely to go ga-ga about it, even if it is very good (it would have to be exceptional, with some amazing value added content designed to draw traffic).

Enter Qassia. We can help good sites gain exposure, for free, and without the site owner having to spend months on tedious and useless chores such as exchanging links. What we do ask you is to add intel - intelligence, or information about people, companies, or places that only you know about. The more intel you add, the better your sites will rank. You do need to put in some time and effort, true, but people will benefit from your information, and writing about things you know about is more fun that begging for links.

The massive amount of intel we will collect will take the Internet to a new dimension. When searching for information about people or companies or places, you will find yourself at Qassia - which is good, because your websites are right there on Qassia and will benefit from all the traffic. Welcome to a new beginning. Welcome to Qassia.

Affiliate Program That Really Pays

The Sweatshop in the Digital Age

It is accepted as common knowledge, though thankfully less and less so nowadays, that exchanging links is a good way to rank better in search engines. If I link to your site and you link to my site, the thinking goes, both sites will gain an incoming link and the search engines will consider both sites more important and more deserving of a better rank in the results.

Consequently exchanging links has been a core component of SEO work.

Previously, you had to email site owners and suggest link exchanges. Then came automated link exchange management scripts, which helped you organize the links on your site, and then came massive link exchange hubs, such as LinkMarket. These were followed by the latest trend, three-way link exchanges (also referred to with the oxymoronic term "one-way link exchange"). Since search engines cottoned on to link exchanges and started disregarding exchanged links, the latest trend is to build a triangle of links between three sites, thus fooling search engine algorithms designed to detect reciprocal links.

Whether the link exchange is two way or three way, however, does not alter the fact that exchanging link is the most useless exertion of human effort in all of recorded history. Link exchanges and directory submissions might help your sites rank better, but you are spending a very long time on mundane chores that do not benefit society in any way. The Internet and search engine technology were supposed to make our lives more efficient. But there is nothing efficient about our society if you have millions of site owners spending long hours exchanging links.

If you have a huge number of people spending hours and hours exchanging links or submitting to one directory after another, what you end up with is the digital equivalent of the sweatshop. And that's why more and more SEO work is outsourced to countries like India. The Google algorithm has unwittingly created an army of mindless automatons, stuck forever behind their computer screens, spending long hours day after day on mindlessly tedious tasks such as link exchanges and directory submissions. This time could much better be spent contributing some useful information. If you are going to start exchanging links or submitting to one useless directory after another, you might as well be spending your time counting blades of grass, or building houses out of matchsticks.

Clearly, something is wrong and something needs to change, and Qassia is part of the answer. Qassia is not intended to take the effort out of website promotion work. What Qassia will do is parlay the energy generated by hard-working site owners into something useful, namely an intelligence repository. Instead of spending hours exchanging links, you can spend hours adding intel . Society directly benefits from the intel you add, and you'll find that adding intel is a lot more fun than exchanging links.

Affiliate Program That Really Pays

Intel an Intelligence Concept

Share your Intel!

Intel is intelligence, i.e. any tidbit of information. Intel can be a detailed and lengthy academic treatise. But more often it will be just one paragraph with some information only a few people know about. You can write intel in any style you like, and your intel will not get edited by anyone except you.

Intel can be about a person, a company, a place, a thing, or just about anything. The idea is to create a fabric of intelligence stretching coast to coast, covering the society we live in. Got a job offer from a company you never heard of? Meeting a potential room mate? Googling didn't get you anything useful? Well, Google searches for web pages, not for intel, so you might be more likely to find something interesting at Qassia.

Here are some examples of intel about people. You can write about...

• the fact that Peter Lemanski, your boss, is a bigtime wine aficionado
  
  
• the quirks and idiosyncracies of Julie Hendrikson, a former girlfriend
  
  
• your neighbor Jerry Takeda's business activities
  
  
• the musical preferences of Sarah W. Hopkins, your colleague at ATT back in 2001.
  
  
• Melody Hernandez, the nurse who helped you out way beyond the call of duty
  
  
• Thad Umpton, the guy who always takes credit for other people's work

Or you can add intel about companies. Talk about...

• what you love and what you hate about working for United Federal Package Express
  
  
• who really calls the shots in the Super Mart's purchasing department
  
  
• what Kendall & Kendall are really good at (audits) and what they suck at (litigation)
  
  
• the brand of industrial carpeting used by Global Corp's offices
  
  
• the best day of the week to call Hickville Bank about a bridge loan
  
  
• what the cafeteria serves at McNally Metalworks on Thursdays

Or you can add intel about places, such as...

• where you can get a decent sandwich in your neighborhood
  
  
• where is the 'good' part of town, and where the pushers hang out
  
  
• the history and ethnic mix of your suburb
  
  
• festivals and events that are important to the local residents
  
  
• landmarks and popular meeting places
  
  
• the local churches and their congregations

Of course, if you want and if you have the knowledge, you can also add more typical stuff found at other knowledge bases and websites. Describe a device. Or dispense advice. Write a scientific paper, replete with footnotes. Or just transcribe some notes scribbled on the back of a napkin.

• a favorite recipe for Kool-Aid™
• features and review of CGJX-1245, the latest gadget
• the mating habits of the Flyabouti buzzimus
• what's tasty and what's lousy at Vince's Trattoria
• how to fix a crack in the pavement of your driveway
• the unabridged story of the Battle of Frent, 1675

The more intel you add, the more credit you get, in the form of Qassia dollars. And the more Qassia dollars you have in your account, the better your sites will rank. In addition, each intel will have a link pointing to your website, so the more intel you add, the more backlinks you get. But that's not all! If your intel generates advertising revenue, you get all of it.

By the way, next time you need information about somebody or someplace or something, try searching at Qassia. Qassia will return bits and pieces of intel which match your query. You might be surprised at what you'll find.

Affiliate Program That Really Pays

Qassia FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

Here is a list of anticipated questions. Click on the question to display our answer. If you have a question that isn't answered here, you can contact us directly.

What exactly is Qassia?

Qassia is a site to which you can a...

Qassia is a site to which you can add your websites. You can also add your knowledge, in the form of tidbits of information called "intel". The more intel you add, the better your sites will rank, the more backlinks you get, and the more money you make.

Qassia is 100 percent free, and does not require reciprocal links. You can get unlimited quality backlinks to your websites from Qassia.

Who is behind Qassia?		We are an international web develop...

We are an international web development outfit you've probably never heard of. Chances are, though, that you've come across our sites while browsing the net, because we've been putting out good, useful and sometimes crazy sites since 1996. Qassia is, needless to say, our far most ambitious project yet.

Is Qassia a search engine?

No, Qassia is an intelligence engin...

No, Qassia is an intelligence engine. We fuel the digitization of intelligence and make it available to those who want it. Qassia uses good content to help people find your sites; Qassia makes it easier for your sites to appear in search engine results.

Has something like Qassia been done before?

Not really, though in South Korea t...

Not really, though in South Korea there is a search engine called Naver which works on a similar principle. Naver is the top website in South Korea, and unlike most other markets, Google is far from being the top site in South Korea. Naver's content is entirely original but, unlike Qassia's content, is not shared with other search engines. (See article about Naver here.)

Knowledge bases such as Wikipedia, Squidoo, Hubpages, and Knol are also somewhat similar to Qassia. Qassia, however, is the only intelligence engine we know of, and the only knowledge base to reward contributions with credit designed to improve the ranking of websites. Wikipedia gives no credit - which is fine with the academic community behind most of the articles, whereas the other knowledge bases are trying - unsuccessfully so far - to develop an effective revenue-sharing model.

We have taken a completely different approach. We ask for intel, which anybody can add in abundance, not authoritative articles. And we have the only revenue sharing model that actually works.

What can Qassia do for me?		If you are a website owner, Qassia ...

If you are a website owner, Qassia will help your websites perform better at search engines. You can get unlimited quality backlinks from Qassia. Additionally, in the medium to long term, Qassia will drive traffic to your site as Qassia will be used for finding content.

If you are user seeking information, Qassia will help you find original content and useful information you might be interested in.

What do you mean with "intel"?		Intel, short for intelligence, is w...

Intel, short for intelligence, is what we call any chunk of information. Intel is added to Qassia in the form of posts, which are somewhat similar to blog posts. Click here for more info.

What kind of intel can I add?		You can add any kind of information...

You can add any kind of information you want. You might want to upload information about a person, or a place. Neither have to be famous. Or you might want to share your knowledge about a device, a plant, or an animal. Perhaps you know about news or an event - something that happened. If it's information, you can add it to Qassia.

Does the intel I add have to be related to my website?		No, you can have a website about ch...

No, you can have a website about chess and add intel about cheese. You can have a website about rabbits and add intel about the gossip in your office. It makes no difference.

Will my intel be edited?		No, the only one who can touch your...

No, the only one who can touch your intel is you.

Can I add images and videos to my intel?		Images, yes. You can add up to 25 i...

Images, yes. You can add up to 25 images per intel. Images are not resized. Videos, not yet. We are still deciding which video sharing site to partner with. For the meantime, you can add links to videos at other sites - you can add embedded and external links.

Can I add intel in French? Serbian? Russian?

No, we are English-only for now. No...

No, we are English-only for now. Non-English versions will be coming in the middle of 2008, if not sooner.

What is a screening?		Screening is the initial rating of ...

Screening is the initial rating of intel by a fixed number of users, prior to publishing, during which the intel may be rated, but also rejected. You are free to add any type of intel, but we don't want total garbage (for example intel composed entirely of keywords instead of sentences) getting into our index.

How does the screening process work?		When you upload intel, it is not pu...

When you upload intel, it is not published right away. It has to be screened by a set number of users. After the intel has been screened, it is either published or rejected. After intel is published, users can continue to rate (but not reject) the intel as long as it is available.

How does the score assigned during screening affect intel?		If several users have intel dealing...

If several users have intel dealing with "French cheese", the intel with the highest score will be displayed first.

Do I get credit for screening other people's intel?		Yes. And if the rating you assign t...

Yes. And if the rating you assign to an intel is very close to the final score that intel gets after the screening, you get a bonus. You get an additional bonus if you are the first one to rate the intel.

How many users can I refer to Qassia?		We currently do not have a quota on...

We currently do not have a quota on the number of referrals you can make.

Why can't I see the credit for a referral in my account statement?		This is because the user you referr...

This is because the user you referred has not validated his/her email address.

Which referral credit rate applies, time of referral, or time of email validation?

Time of email validation. Consequen...

Time of email validation. Consequently, please urge your friends and acquaintances to validate their email addresses.

Is there a delay before credits show up in my statement?

No, credits are applied instantly. ...

No, credits are applied instantly. Referral credits are applied the instant the referred user validates his/her email address. Intel credit is applied when the intel is published (the required number of users have screened the intel and the screening process is completed). Credit for screening is also applied when the screened intel is published.

How can my websites get exposure and traffic at Qassia?

Your websites will be displayed w...

Your websites will be displayed when users browse through our tag-based directory. We will display a limited number of websites at the top of the page, in the space other sites use for "sponsored results". (The main space on the page, below, is reserved for intel.) How do we select the limited number of sites to display? We choose those sites that are owned by the users with the largest number of Qassia dollars in their account.

A link to your website will be displayed every time your intel is displayed or referenced.

How will users access the intel at Qassia?

Users will be able to browse throug...

Users will be able to browse through our cascading tag-based directory, or search. Matching websites and intel will be displayed for each tag or search.

What exactly is a cascading tag-based directory?

It's something we've developed. It'...

It's something we've developed. It's a directory, but based on cascading tags rather than categories. On the landing page, you have the 20 most popular tags. Click on a tag, and you then get the 20 most popular tags that also have the first tag. And so on.

For example, if you click on "cars" at the landing page, the next page might have a list of secondary tags such as "imported", "used", "classic", "hybrid", etc. Click on "imported" and the subsequent page might have a list of tertiary tags such as "German", "Jaguar", "Lexus", etc.

Matching websites and intel will be displayed on each page: websites first, intel second.

Will Qassia crawl my websites?

No. We leave the crawling to Google...

No. We leave the crawling to Google. We prefer to hurtle.

What do you mean with "credit"?

Credit is measured in a currency we...

Credit is measured in a currency we invented, called 'Qassia dollars'. The more you contribute to the site, the more Qassia dollars you earn. The Qassia dollars are added to your account, and you can view detailed statements showing your deposits, just like in a real bank account. The more Qassia dollars you are worth, the better your websites will rank.

How can I earn Qassia dollars?

By referring a friend to Qassia, by...

By referring a friend to Qassia, by screening intel contributed by other users, or by adding intel of your own. See this page.

How can I spend Qassia dollars?

Eventually we will introduce auctio...

Eventually we will introduce auctions for front-page advertising, site-wide links, and other novel ways for you to burn through your hard-earned Qassia dollars. For the meantime, what matters is the amount of Qassia dollars you have in your account. Your net worth determines how high your sites will rank.

Can I buy Qassia dollars?

Right now, no. We have no plans to ...

Right now, no. We have no plans to sell Qassia dollars. However, we may eventually add a Qassia dollar account to account transfer system. That means you might be able to transfer your Qassia dollars to the account of another user. It is conceivable that, with such a system in place, some users will be willing to sell their Qassia dollars for real dollars. But we need to vastly improve infrastructural security before we set up such a system.

How will Qassia make money?

We carry advertising on the landing...

We carry advertising on the landing page of our site, and when navigation or search results are displayed.

What do you mean with "ad revenue sharing"?

When advertising displayed next to ...

When advertising displayed next to your user page or intel generates income, that money goes to you.

We have by far the best ad revenue sharing plan on the Internet.

How does the "ad revenue sharing" work?

If you have a Google Adsense accoun...

If you have a Google Adsense account, we run ads on your user page or next to your intel using your Google Adsense account number. Consequently any advertising revenue generated by your user page or intel goes straight to you. Click here for more information.

How do I get paid for the advertising revenue I generate?

That's between you and Google. The ...

That's between you and Google. The most common form of payment is check. You can find out more at Google Adsense.

The advertising revenue, is it in real dollars or Qassia dollars?

Real dollars. Google don't use Qass...

Real dollars. Google don't use Qassia dollars.

Why is Qassia in "private beta"?

We are currently testing and refini...

We are currently testing and refining our system with a limited number of participants. We are observing how the users interact with our site and tweaking our system to make sure it functions smoothly. Once we are confident we have everything right, we'll go into public beta, and then launch.

How do I sign up?

You can sign up on the profile page...

You can sign up on the profile page of the user who referred you. Right now we are in private beta, so that's the only way to sign up.

Can you send me an invitation?

Sorry but you need to be referred b...

Sorry but you need to be referred by another user.

How long will you be in private beta?

A few weeks, perhaps a month or two...

A few weeks, perhaps a month or two. Not very long.

What is the launch schedule?

We launched on January 1, 2008, wit...

We launched on January 1, 2008, with private beta. We hope to come out of private beta by February, and launch with fanfare by April. Non-English language versions will follow by mid-year.

Affiliate Program That Really Pays

How Revenue is Shared?

Ad Revenue Sharing

Qassia is not a knowledge base, but we rely on the same user contribution principle, since our bread and butter is the accumulation and amalgamation of intel. And sites that rely on user contributions are expected to compensate their contributors. While our primary way of rewarding content is with backlinks and exposure for users' websites, we also share advertising revenues with our users.

So how much do you get?

Some knowledge bases split net advertising income 40/60 in their favor, after deducting operating expenses such as server costs. Others, trying to capitalize on user resentment against those first mentioned, split gross revenue 50/50, before deducting expenses.

But at Qassia, you get no less than 100 percent of gross advertising revenue. That means you get ALL of it. Sound great? Or sound fishy? Don't worry - at Qassia we don't even get involved in the filthy business of touching money in the first place. The ad revenue goes straight from the advertising company to you.

How does this work?

It's very simple. We run Google Adsense ads. When your user page or intel is displayed, the Google ad is run using your account number. That means you own the ad, and we don't even know how many times it gets clicked on or how much it generates. You can check these stats yourself by logging into your Google Adsense account, with which we have nothing to do. The revenue from your ads at Qassia will be right there, alongside your other ad revenue (if you also run ads on your own sites). When the time comes to get paid, Google pay you directly.

Simple, isn't it? The best solutions always are. This elegant arrangement ensures that everyone, including Qassia, benefits, because we believe in the curious Eastern notion that by taking less, we will gain more.

Revenue Sharing FAQ

What is Google Adsense?

It's a very good system in which yo...

It's a very good system in which you can sign up to carry ads syndicated by Google. If the ads generate income, you get paid by Google. Go to www.google.com/adsense to find out more.

What do you need from me?

Your intel! Lots of it... and your...

Your intel! Lots of it... and your Google Adsense account number. It's a 16-digit number. We have instructions on how to find it, and how to enter it into your account. You just need to login and go to your dashboard.

Isn't it a security risk to give you my Adsense account number?

No, your account number is public i...

No, your account number is public information to begin with. You can find out the account number of anyone running Google Adsense ads. Just view the source code of the iframe running the ad, and voila, there it is right there. There is no risk in someone knowing your Adsense account number.

What if I don't have a Google Adsense account?

Get one, it's very easy. You just n...

Get one, it's very easy. You just need to fill out an online form. You can live in any country. The only requirement is that you need to have a website.

Don't have a website? No problem - these days it takes about 60 seconds to create a website. Just go to Blogger, also owned by Google, and set up a blog (a good title for your blog is "My Blog"). Put up one or two posts, and that's it - you're ready to sign up at Adsense. You'll get your Adsense account within 36 hours after signing up.

What if I don't want to get a Google Adsense account?

Your user page will be displayed wi...

Your user page will be displayed without any ads. The ads alongside your intel, meanwhile, will run using our Adsense account number, and you don't get a dime. That's fine with us.

How will Qassia make money, if the ads are owned by the contributing users?

Well, we run our ads on the front p...

Well, we run our ads on the front page. And we don't run ads using the user's account numbers if we are displaying search results (comprised of snippets from multiple intel), or when users are navigating through the directory (again, snippets from multiple intel will be displayed). We only display ads using your account number if the page being displayed is the individual page for your intel, or your user page.

How much can I expect to make?

Probably not much. Most people won'...

Probably not much. Most people won't make more than a few bucks a month. (Note that Google only pay out if the balance is higher than $100.) Others might make hundreds or even thousands. If your intel gets slashdotted or dugg, and gets a zillion page views, then you might make a substantial amount of money. In any case, you'll definitely make more at Qassia than you would if you contributed the same content to another site, because at Qassia you get 100%.

Doesn't this contravene the Adsense TOS?

Not that we know of. You own the co...

Not that we know of. You own the content on the page, and we are leasing the page to you. Moreover, your ad is the only ad on the page. So it should be kosher. By the way, we've been using a similar model on one of our sites that's been up since 2005.

Can I edit the design of my ads?

No, you own the ads, but we get to ...

No, you own the ads, but we get to decide how the page looks like. All ads will run using the same design, determined by us.

Affiliate Program That Really Pays

Qassia AdRevenue Sharing

Qassia is a credit-driven intelligence engine coupled to a cascading tag-based web directory. What exactly does this mean? It means that Qassia will change your life.

Good stuff your websites will like

At Qassia, you can add your websites for free, and without having to add reciprocal backlinks. You'll get unlimited quality backlinks (as opposed to "no-follow" backlinks). You can also add intel. Short for "intelligence", intel is a tidbit of information. Qassia rewards users who add intel in three ways.

Backlinks You get one backlink for every piece of intel you add. Every intel will carry a direct backlink to one of your sites. So the more intel you add, the more backlinks you get.

Credit When you add intel, you also get credit, in the form of Qassia dollars. Your net worth in Qassia dollars determines how well your websites rank in our directory.

Revenue When your intel is displayed, you get 100% of the advertising revenue generated by that page. That is not a typo, by the way: we give you ALL of the gross ad revenue.

This means that website owners have triple incentive to contribute intel. The contributed intel will allow Qassia to become a vast repository of intelligence, with unrivalled original content. And a vast amount of original content draws traffic like honey draws ants.

Inside Intel, rather than Intel Inside

Qassia is sometimes confused with sites like Wikipedia, Squidoo, most recently, Google knol. Qassia is fundamentally different from these sites, because Qassia is not about asking people to upload authoritative articles. You don't need to be an egghead at Qassia. You could upload a lengthy academic treatise if you want, by all means, but you can also get away with contributing a hastily scribbled tidbit of information about a person, a company, a place, an event, a thing, or anything you know about.

What we value is intelligence about the people, companies, and places around you. The people and places do not have to be famous, and the intelligence does not have to be earth-shattering.

Qassia isn't a wiki. Your intel will not get edited (it will get rated, but not edited). You can write your intel in any tone or style you like. You can write in the first person, and you can write your entire intel without using the shift key.

By asking for less, we receive more

We are sometimes asked if it is free to join and use Qassia. That makes us chuckle. Not only is Qassia 100 percent free - we do not even ask for reciprocal links - but, in addition to promoting your websites and discovering stuff, you can also earn real money - very easily and without any hassle. We have the best, most generous, and most reliable ad revenue sharing program on the web. So if you're thusly inclined - and who wouldn't be? - you'll actually get paid for the effort you put in promoting your websites. No hitch, no catch. Now, if that ain't a sweet deal, we don't know what is.

We believe that, only by completely pampering our users and giving more than any other website, and in fact giving more than the users themselves expect, can we attain our goal of becoming the most incredible website the world has ever seen.

Qassia is a new era

Think of the bits and pieces of intel as the gravel which will fill the potholes on the information superhighway. While the Wikipedia and other knowledge repositories are huge, boasting tens of thousands of articles, less than 1 percent of human knowledge has been uploaded to the Internet. At Qassia, we are giving users the incentive and the freedom to add the remaining 99.9 percent.

The vast web of intel created at Qassia will produce more than a useful intelligence engine. The advent of Qassia is a cataclysmic event in the history of the Internet. We are redefining the web experience. Come be part of history and create your free Qassia account now.

Affiliate Program That Really Pays