Thinking about the pay problem for content, I increasingly think that there will have to be large sections of the Web that are pay before you enter, and I have an idea for an area managed by a non-profit.
Just as a suggestion I thought up a name for one which would be: Association for Good Content or the AGC.
The way it might work would be a free period when anyone could visit or join, followed by the doors closing and paid access, like $20 US per month, where inside the zone you'd have commercial and commercial free areas, as well as social networking, again commercial or commercial free--by user choice--and the issue then would be content.
As in, how would it be chosen?
My experiments with my own blogs indicate it could be a content aggregator with links to content freely available (unless other areas of the web get locked down so then AGC would pay) where the association would be solving the endless choice problem: so many choices on the web, so how do you pick?
Oh yeah, commercial areas of the AGC could be easily avoidable by those who hate ads, and the type and placement of ads within them could be controlled by the AGC, which as a non-profit would have to spend every dime it makes except for a limited reserve.
Editorial decisions about what to include could be managed by a paid board which would face election, that is, board members would be hired by executive search but could be fired by members by vote, while members could make suggestions for content, but not directly choose except for maybe their own personal pages.
The AGC could pay content providers directly for content exclusive to the zone.
Well that's all I have for now as I just thought of that while drying off from the shower and getting dressed so that's about ten minutes worth of thinking just thrown out there. Rough ideas, but not much time spent so no reason to worry too much about the investment in thinking time from my side.
James Harris
