Digg user auctions profile on eBay

Digg user 'Geekforlife' has decided to put his profile, ranked 73rd out of all users, up for auction on eBay. Amidst accusations hurling at both Digg and Netscape for their respective approaches towards the social news site and business models, one of the many debates that has arisen centers around a question: can the participation of these sites' users (especially the top contributors) be measured in dollars and cents? Jason Calacanis (disclosure: our CEO and general manager of the new Netscape) certainly thinks so, as do plenty of other bloggers, such as Ian Betteridge.

Understandably, not everyone is happy with the concept of monetary incentives being inserted into the realm of grassroots social news aggregating, but 'Geekforlife' has apparently been inspired to try out his own take on the situation with this auction. As of this writing, bidding (possibly due to fraud/inflation) is already up to $325 after 27 bids. I guess time will tell as to what, if anything, this little experiment could mean to the social news universe.

Tags: auction, digg, ebay, geekforlife, profile, user