Online marketplace for content

Media organizations increasingly rely on syndicated content, but access to such material typically requires expensive subscriptions or syndication deals. New York-based Mochila has devised a way to offer articles, photos, audio and videos a la carte while dispensing with subscription fees and protecting authors' rights. Launched earlier this year, Mochila's website is essentially an online marketplace for content. Sellers offer up their wares along with price and any restrictions; buyers search for what they need and choose the best match. Content can be instantly downloaded into any publishing system, and purchases can be made in two ways: either by paying the price set by the original content owner, or by agreeing to post advertising along with the item, in which case the content is free. In the ad-supported arrangement, advertising revenue is shared among the buyer, the seller and Mochila. For sellers, the benefits include new revenue opportunities and increased exposure; for buyers, decreased operational costs, more ad pages and revenue opportunities, and the rub-off effect of big-name content are among them. More than 1,000 media organizations have joined Mochila so far, including Reuters, the Associated Press and Hearst Magazines—you can't get much bigger than that. World media spent just under USD 2 billion on syndicated news content last year, and that figure is expected to grow to USD 3 billion by 2008, Mochila says. The time is ripe for a new content model, and it looks like this one is taking hold. How about putting a niche or curator’s spin on the concept?

Upcoming trendy magazines in Bangladesh like Purple. ICE Today even Executive Times sometimes crave for mature, relevant and publishable contents to feed the reader's brains. No doubt they have their own sources to source content, but some sort of streamlined effort to connect the casual, professional writers of different topics would be a win-win for all. Monsoonletters.com have started doing something in that line, there are a few groups of Bangladeshi writers in Facebook, but its all done for the love of it, not keeping any business angle in mind. An online mechanism to upload sudden spillover of literary fireworks surely helps pacify the mind of the writer. An online mechanism to purchase that content from the writer and use it in a publishing business would make life easier for content-hungry print media corporates in Bangladesh. Mere being able to write and publish is happiness for the writer, being paid and acknowledged for that writing is no doubt a greater incentive to write even more with more sense. Food for thought for you.