Company and community sharing/not sharing revenue

Revenue sharing, from ads or similar income generators, between companies and their connected communties providing the content is uncommon, and not an expected relation between community and a given company, should money at some point be generated.
(E.g MySpace or YouTube)
A company host the site, design the frames of the site.
Users have their playground, designing the activity and the information flow.
Sharing of revenue is only common when a contract between user and company explicitly state that, typically a cornerstone in attracting a community
But more often it is the case that companies have direct affiliate programs, stating the benefit of one user, to connect others. (E.g Rebtel Affiliate program on Facebook).

CNN sets up complete user generated news site

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/cnn_to_launch_completely_user.php

CNN establishes a complete portal dedicated to user generated news, the community will be the sole moderators. No top-down control or censorship.

Citizen journalism (only user generated content)

Post-moderated content (community decides what news are – moderating already uploaded content – no restrictions in production)

Business model? What are the values of this:
Awareness, connecting community activity to a brand (CNN?)?
How do they measure the value?
How concretely is CNN tapping into the resources of the producing community?

Attention economy vs value of communities

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/attention_economy_overview.php

Quotes from the article:

The economical aspect of keeping the attention of users in an increasingly more vast info-sphere, reducing “false positives” (an expectation of a user that is not met by a service or a product), and of giving away services in return for a users attention:

“When information is abundant, the false positives are very costly – they are basically deal breakers.”
” The idea behind the Attention Economy is to create a marketplace where consumers are happy, because if they are shown relevant information – then retailers are happy too, because happy consumers spend money!”

“a marketplace where consumers agree to receives services in exchange for their attention. The ultimate purpose is of course to sell something to the consumer, but the selling does not need to be direct and does not need to be instant. For example news feeds illustrate the point well, since they ask for consumers attention in exchange for the opportunity to show him/her advertising”

NB:

This system is an example of what many deem to be the nature of web 3.0:
- personal customization based on your individual desires, needs, wants.
I.o.w privacy, personal control of your attention, relevance of information .
Tailor-made and automatic (via software) distribution and channeling of goods and services to each end-consumer.

—
The passionate consumer/user

vs

Compassionate participant