The way it works is : seller pay 5%-6% of commission to his agent. Seller agent then posts what the buyer agent will get. Buyer agent will get equal or more, as he to do more legwork.

now interesting part:

a buyer can negotiate with his agent to get some of the commission a buyer agent gets in range of 1.5%-2%. But buyer has to work with smaller agents, not affiliated with big firms : century 21. There is glut of agents, and you can get the deal. (me and some of my friends have)

needless to say : you have to do lot of legwork : finding house urself, and just the agent to do the paperwork.

Same goes with seller : he has to give 3% for buyer agent, but for his agent (seller agent) he can negotiate to 1% - 1.5% (know of that happening too)

while looking for a next house, I just made a aggregator to scrape multiple sites and let me know when new house is available in bay area. (http://www.twikstik.com/ : running on appengine)