On Viral Video (via "thenewsroom")

I wanted to try out TheNewsRoom after reading this announcement from parent company Voxant and Dow Jones. So, what better way to try it out then by posting a video on my blog about something recent that's happened. For this trial I chose an AP video about Google Gears. It's informative, if you don't understand the significance of the new product, and what's good for me is that by posting this video I can earn revenue (I just need 1,000 impressions to get $4! -- (here's the rate card)). Beside the opportunity to earn revenue (which should really be much higher, considering NYTimes is expecting to get $60/CPM for it's content), I think the overall quality of the content is a huge plus. Folks with quality content have the ultimate edge in this world of ubiquitous content. "Quality," as Robert Pirsig would say, evades ubiquity, and this gives

Of course I'm going to tell you "what's wrong":

• Well, for one, it's not really "viral enabled." Look, if you can't grab code quickly and easily, who's going to do it? Truly viral content has zero barriers in passing itself from one "carrier" to another. I didn't have to go register and sign a licensing agreement to catch this cold I'm shaking right now. But I have it, and I likely passed it on to someone else effortlessly and in what appeared to me as going about my daily business.
• For two, navigating the site and finding interesting content could be a lot easier. Who's going to be going on your site trying to get this content out to people? Info hounds like me. And info hounds like me value the ability to scroll through a ton of content very quickly and be offered quick tools like tag clouds to find info.
• For three, as I already mentioned, you gotta offer more dinero than $4/CPM, or at least offer it prorated to the amount advertisers are paying.

I really think there's an important business model somewhere in what these folks are doing, and I hope they figure it out before I try and jump in the fray and start my own company around this model (I've been thinking seriously about this for the past few months). I don't need another project ;-)

Oh, and here's the video. Enjoy.