-matt

I do not understand something. Why do so many people post their content on YouTube, P2P networks or on MySpace for free with little or no payback? How much can anyone really make if those sites sell ads around your content, not much I bet.

Without sound like an ad or spam…My friends created 9thX.com and why it is very different. “With 9thX.com, YOU GET PAID for the content you upload to our site. You can sell any content you have in Windows Media Player format (movies, clips and music) and you maintain rights to your content.” You only pay 9thX when you sell something. They archive and promote your content for free.

9thX.com’s positioning and business model fits better with the needs of anyone, the artist and the consumer. They just launched, and I know it will take some time…but it is only a matter of time.

I’m sure the giants, Youtube and Google will respond in time. I for one, could care less about ad based revenue. it reeks of Amway-ism. Not bad if you are at the top I guess.

What I don’t understand is why Google is manually adding anything to its hallowed first tier. I thought all the decisions at Google were made on the basis of what actually gets used by the users. You know.. all the decisions of what features to include or not include.. whether to create or drop a new service, etc. That whole “5% rule” thing. Google is an empircal, data-driven company, right?

So why isn’t their front page automatically generated? Why isn’t there a statistical-usage-based script that determines which Google services are getting used the most, and then automatically puts those services on the hallowed first tier?

Could it be that they’re actually promoting a service, instead of letting themselves be ruled by user data? Could it be that, as Joe Chapuis found in his post above, that if you promote something, people will use it more…rather than letting something grow organically?

To me grokking the implication of that is the bigger deal. It seems a departure from standard Google algorithmic, data-driven practice.

Google Video has almost 0 sense of community, whereas Youtube is all about it.

With the advent of Checkout, and its ties to Froogle, why not continue boosting Froogle’s traffic? They could have put both on the homepage… why didn’t they?

In substance, I think YouTube and the like will remain the preferred destination for those who choose to be on the periphery and shun the “mainstream” sites.

Google obviously has very bright people working hard on solving problems and they have done some very cool things…fueled by an uber market cap. Google has volume but has no community. Features can only take you so far; with no community, there’s not a lot of loyalty.

Google should try to be more deft at building community when launching new offerings, lest they become a facsimile, another “me too”.