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I think Chrome when it first came out was giving $5 per install as well.

You see similar rewards here in UK for referring people to new bank accounts, Chase made a big move over here and was giving £20 to the referrer, and £20 to the referred for minimum commitment. If you got the money it's a fast way to gobble up market share.

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Yep I ran the early Google referral programs where we paid a bounty to adsense pubs that originally were referring Firefox installs!

Does it necessarily have to be money? I know everybody likes cash. Dropbox ran a very successful referral program where they give double (I guess) the storage to both parties.

Doesn't have to be cash, but I think it's important to remember when Dropbox was doing it disc space was a lot more valuable - I don't think it would work as well nowadays.

Dropbox storage is the lead example in TFA ;-)

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