Last week Userplane announced a new revenue sharing program called “Userplane Money.” For those that are unaware, Userplane is “the premier provider of communication software for online communities.” I had the fortune to interview the CEO of Userplane, Michael Jones, and find out more about the new program and future plans for Userplane. Here are the questions I asked to Michael Jones and his responses:

1. Techcrunch posted an article yesterday about the new Userplane revenue sharing plan. How does this new plan benefit advertisers and web platform owners?
   

   This is the beginning of a larger scale platform for Userplane/AOL. With our ability now to revenue share with all our partners – we can now build and release additional user-engaging tools for publishers that will play an important factor in monetization of 3rd party traffic. We believe this is the next true iteration of online advertising – the distribution and collaborative-monetization of interactive applications across millions of websites.

2. From my personal experience with the Userplane application, it seems that Userplane is primarily focused on closed networks as a means for instant communication. Any chance of Userplane expanding outside of this realm?
   

   Yes- Userplane is currently working on AIM compatibility as well as further opening up our network. Most publishers using Userplane use the applications specifically for the closed nature of the application – these new open connections will be opt-in by the manager of the community.

3. Does Userplane have any plans to make a Meebo competitor?
   

   Not currently – AOL has both WebAIM API’s as well as a web version of AIM – Userplane is focused on enabling community and user interaction on other people’s websites, not driving traffic to Userplane destinations.

4. Any chance of a Userplane Facebook application being launched?
   

   We certainly have been playing with their API’s – if it is a good fit for our products we would release an app for Facebook – just as we support integration on other platforms such as Vbulletin, Drupal, PHPNuke, Mambo, etc.

Special thanks to Mike for taking the time to answer these questions!