I lile the idea, I think there is another idea on here that is quite similar, I belive it's called the Blog marketing Machine, in the projects section. Might be worth taking a look and combining ideas as I think there is some overlap between the two.

I have actually eveled some software that tracks click thoughs (and more importantly sale conversions based on these click throughs) for a project a long time back which could potentially be adapted for something like this so would be keen in getting invloved if this gets turned into a project

I love it.

Popularity should be paid...although if you get paid too much, you may no longer be popular (ie sell-out)

Fine line but I think it would work.

Great idea!

Jay

well that is already in progress of what we are creating launching live very soon... we dont call it to be cool. we call it the hype...

http://www.hypesphere.com

You make this idea sound like everyone will be able to make a lot of money when that isn't the case. In order to make "good money" you would have to have TONS of people visit your site (more than most people have in any friends list).

As far as paying people to click, you would have you offer fractions of a very small fraction penny, otherwise you would be losing out on your fraction of a penny.

This idea would work well to help people make some change and perhaps a few dollars, but only a select few will be able to make good money.

Fitzpatrick - I respectfully disagree. The economics of this would work very much like AdSense. Google makes billions because content creators are willing to spend money to bring attention to their products. Attention is very valuable. For example, the average valuation per user for a large social networking site (Facebook, for example) is around $10 - $20 PER PERSON. I think many widget owners would be willing and able to provide somewhere in the neighborhood of $.5 to $.10 for each clickthrough.

I agree that it wouldn't be enough to be a full-time job, but could probably be enough to make $20 - $30 a month, which isn't bad for the target demographic of teens/young adults.

Cool idea!

I really like this. Any focus on widgets is a good place to be right now. Read Dave Weinberger's blog or http://scripting.com/ and you'll see those thought leaders are really big on widgets.

One problem: I'm not cool either. Can you think of a way to make buck out of being an unpopular nerd?
Great idea though. How do you plan on enticing cool people to sign up for it?

A widget widget. Sounds interesting.

That gives me an idea for a widget widget widget which compiles all of your widget widgets into one widget.

Cool idea. Keep working on it.

TheDorito - You know how I roll, baby. I'm so meta it hurts.

Companies all ready pay bloggers and forum posters to talk about them in a positive way.

KC - Yes, but is there a company that pays people to display their widgets?

I totally agree, companies like PayPerPost are out there - and doing *very* well (over $10M in funding to this point).

i like this!

Would it work on more than just Myspace? Say Facebook perhaps?

DLR - I'd have to dig into the API and TOS for Facebook, but I imagine that it could be done quite easily. Great idea, thanks!