Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, Raju Kattel, co-founder of EICT Nepal which oversees Sagoon.com, said that the idea was to pass the benefits accumulated by the web to the users of the platform.

“Popular sites like Facebook earn a huge chunk of money through various sources. It is because people use it. We will pass a certain chunk of it to our users,” Kattel said.

According to him, as soon as a user is registered, the site will issue a social smart card with a $5 balance.

The more users use the social media platform, the more money they earn. “This will preliminarily be based on the number of friend requests sent and frequency of chat messages,” Kattel said.

However, the money that the site offers will not be available in physical form. Users can only redeem it for goods with a number of merchants associated with Sagoon.com.

The company said that its site would be upgraded from the current Beta version to a full-fledged site within three months. The list of merchants will also be published then.

According to EICT, users cannot redeem the points accumulated for a period of three months, which is why there won’t be much of a problem initially in Nepal.

Similarly, Me Page is another feature of Sagoon.com. “It is almost similar with LinkedIn. Our feature, however, is easier to use and features professional and personal ID in a more dynamic manner,” Kattel said.

The Me Page personalizes all the content which is tailor made to fit the user’s taste in an exclusive and accessible way.

The site also contains two features named Secret and Occasion which allow users to tell their stories in pictures, reveal secrets and share personal moments, the company said.

Sagoon.com was developed by Govinda Giri, a US-based Nepali. The product has also been introduced in India and the US. The social media platform has a user base of 116,000.