Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Root.net: Too Innovative?

Re: Root.net: Too Innovative?

Sam S. — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 09:20:51 -0000

There is a huge chicken and egg problem with this business. Any advertiser needs scale before they will invest time or money. This will never scale. However, if they make their money from traditional lead generation and Seth gets the self-promotion that he wants from the "new" model then all should be happy. Wait for the fallout when the Emperor is found wearing no clothes.....

Re: Root.net: Too Innovative?

David G — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:55:37 -0000

call me a cynic .... but I think we have Web 2.0's "pets.com" here :-)

keep it coming Pete ...

Re: Root.net: Too Innovative?

Pete Cashmore — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 22:09:15 -0000

Greg,

Hehe. Yeah, like I say, I expect you guys have checked the figures on this one - I must admit I've no idea how much you can make from lead generation. Clearly, the answer is "enough". :)

Re: Root.net: Too Innovative?

Greg Yardley — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 21:35:42 -0000

Pete, considering half the business is the well-established lead generation model, perhaps the innovation averages out to just the right amount. :)

Robert - no, in my opinion pay-to-surf has always been a silly idea.

Re: Root.net: Too Innovative?

Pete Cashmore — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 21:01:41 -0000

Robert,

Yeah, the old micropayments debate. I certainly don't buy into the idea that we'll be paying a few cents to view a webpage (as many people keep insisting), but I guess if you consider iTunes to be a micropayments system you might say there are things happening in the space.

Re: Root.net: Too Innovative?

Robert Oschler — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:58:00 -0000

Isn't this yet another repackaging of the bold new "paid to surf" concept that is already gathering dust? That idea and micropayments still haven't gotten any real traction yet.

Re: Root.net: Too Innovative?

Jeremy Stein — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 18:38:36 -0000

Pete... in response to your subscriber status there is a simple explanation for that. RSS adds more value to sites that aren't updated often. If you aren't blogging much, I won't be as inclined to continually visit this site. It is much more practical for me to then subscribe to your feed if you only blog once every few days compared to 5 new posts/day.

Re: Root.net: Too Innovative?

Ryan Williams — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:48:26 -0000

Ahead of its time? Maybe. I don't really see a time when enough people would be willing to sell their clickstream, but who would've ever thought we'd want to share all of our bookmarks, pictures, goals, or even Net worth.

If the user gets enough out of it, either in terms of money, or other value (ala del.icio.us popular) it could work.