Thread: Monetizing but is it what the people really want?

As some of you guys may know I am looking into building a demo site for a social networking site/ video site I had an idea for. I found some interest in socialcam's and viddy's permissions for facebook sharing where you need to accept the app to watch on Facebook and then it will share any videos you watch with your friends. It allows them to access your basic information and email (great marketing tools to judge customer base btw). I will post a pic below of the permissions page for accepting socialcam but viddy is almost identical. However, after some thinking, me being more tech savvy than a lot of my friends, this permissions which allows the app to post to my wall an allows it to access my personal information has been the sole reason I DON"T use either Facebook app. Clearly, as a marketer, knowing exactly what demographic is watching what videos and when is a huge advantage (and gives me a great email list), however, I have read in more than a few start up/ entrepreneur based books now (including MFL) that if you build a product that people will use and love, the money will come, I am a true believer in this and don't want to attempt to scrape up every bit of info about someone I can and in turn appear unprofessional or shy people away (like what happened to me with socialcam/viddy). I am now leaning towards just having a picture show when someone shares a video that looks like the face book video player (tosh.o blog is already doing this and it works rather well I think) and that way I can still draw traffic to the site with the downside being I lose some passive marketing but with the hopes more people will find my site easy to use and not as intrusive. What do you guys think, do the pros outweigh the cons here? What would you do in my situation?

I have included pictures for both the socialcam permissions for the app and the tosh.o blog link below:

SocialCam Permissions Page:


tosh.0 blog video link:



Note: I noticed I sort of made it sound like I was trying to make the next viddy/socialcam, that would be stupid to even attempt, my site would be something like youtube with some reddit added and for a huge niche, with a little emotional icing to top it off, will share more once I get a prototype up and running (I know that didn't give you a great idea, but trust me, its a highly marketable and very catchy idea)

thanks,
Mike

Edit: Just discovered and read this article on Forbes about socialcam and how the contributor doesn't like it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertho...ext-instagram/

Originally Posted by healthstatus

NO! You have to have a monetization strategy, I would also recommend an exit strategy. MJ did not start limos.com, then when it got big decide how to make money from it, he knew that he would sell active leads to the Limo companies from the start.

Well the income would be from advertising, and if I could figure out a system I could probably sell leads to music/recording companies but it would be tricky to ensure that they use you for the lead and don't just contact the 3rd party themselves. Like biophase said:

Originally Posted by biophase

I never click on those links for that exact reason. If the apps didnt do that, then Id probably go to socialcam. But instead I never go there and just watch there videos on youtube or another site.

If me and him both do that, then there is probably a LOT of people doing it as well and it is costing socialcam and viddy hundreds of thousands if not millions of users. The Law of Effection states that the more lives you affect in an entity you control, in scale and/or magnitude, the richer you will become (Pg. 144). Affect millions and make millions!


Edit: I am not disagreeing with you healthstatus and I have only respect for you on the forum but I look at the social media/ web 2.0 bubble and look at it as try and see if you can hop on the bandwagon before it pops, keep your investment low, don't sell your house and car to keep the idea alive, if it fails, you tried, if you win, you win BIG! I think I will approach this social media site once I have a biz making some decent cash flow, that way while I'm wasting away time building the site, I will have some passive income and a fallback. No harm no foul