Ready to jump into the Web 2.0 fray, Salon — the left-y web magazine that isn't Slate — today launches Open Salon, a sorta bloggy-news-aggregator-social-networking thing that hopes to bank on the readership's tendency to whine and talk about each other. So far, we don't see any advertising, which makes Open Salon's most ambitious undertaking not its We Are One Web tool set, but how it plans to compensate bloggers content producers.

Because we all know one left-y website with a problem doing it.

While Salon.com will continue as normal, Open Salon will exist as a separate entity. But that doesn't mean economics aren't part of the equation; Open Salon's pageviews will inevitably boost Salon Proper's web tally. So how to encourage bloggers to post on Open Salon?

The tip jar.

Officially, it's called "Tippem," and it allows Open Salon users to tip each other with actual cash: "The default tip amount is set to $1.00, but you can change it to any amount between $0.10 and $1,000." (Also: "This is not an interest bearing account. The Annual Percentage Yeild is 0%.")

Sure, Open Salon probably gives account holders more fiscal security than, say, IndyMac, but we don't have high hopes for this system.

The readers who will post on Open Salon will do so because: 1) They can't figure out Facebook; or 2) They receive some sort of joy by sharing their rants with the world. (This is also why cable news networks are so popular right now.) Bloggers won't be doing it for the money, and the idea that one user throwing small coins at another is going to encourage sign ups is a little silly. However — and this is where we get to have our cake and smother it all over our faces too — the approach is respectable.

Writers should get paid for their work, even if it's posted on another website. But Salon is hoping other users will provide the capital, rather than spilling some of its bleeding books on your drivel. And you know what that business model is called? Smart.

[Salon]