9thX.com: What Do Napster and Edison Have in Common?
Thanks, Dino, for pointing out a new player in the “digital media marketplace. “9thXchange” is handling the “complex infrastructure needed to sell and manage digital files of all types including documents, games, music, movies and “yet to be created” digital media files.” As evidenced by the start-up’s online video contest, it seems especially interested in vintage footage. Winner gets $1,000 and four runners-up get $250. Here’s what its after:
We are searching for historic and/or memorable digital video such as WWII, classic sports (pre-1960) politcal rallies (pre-1980), news events (pre-1970), famous places, air shows, famous people giving commencement speeches, pro-athletes before they were famous…
I suppose the most interesting thing about this site is what helped spawn it’s creation. Says the “about us” of 9thX: “Inspired by Napster, Apple’s iTunes and even Spiderman 2, predictions of brisk growth in the online digital file market are not uncommon.”
They do have some interesting footage. Here’s someone selling $1.00 copies of a baseball game reportedly filmed by Thomas Edison in 1909 in Newark, NJ.
Edison died obscure, of course, but he may make a come-back as a viral video star.
Interesting news about 9thXchange. I viewed their site and I think they are on to something huge and will become a substantial player in the online video world soon. Talking about Napster, today I made a correlation between Napster, Grokster, and YouTube in my blog post on the Middle Ground Alliance, a site I recently created with a few other like minded people. According to my post, it would seem that the 9thXchange does not have to worry about becoming the next Napster either.
This site is very intriguing. Seems like a nice way to make some supplemental income. Reminds me of how Ebay members create stores and then buy/sell to make some extra cash. Looks like http://www.9thx.com has the same concept but with digital files. I noticed one thing different from http://www.9thx.com and Ebay…. if you are a content owner, you would continue to make royalties off the sale if somebody else sells your content. Very nice!
I signed up as a member and I am going to keep an eye on this website. Good post.
I think that the idea of people being forced to watch commercials never worked and wont for youtube either. Once cable tv, then “on demand” and then finally tivo allowed everyone to “opt out” of commercails, many people did. A significant amount of Consumers have always been willing to pay for entertainment WITHOUT commercials if it was easily available.
Nic
This whole concept is mind boggling. I checked out 9thXchange’s corporate site and http://www.9thx.com to get the whole story of this company and what they do. Finally someone came up with a way to where the only thing we will hear from musicians is their music and not their bitching about whether they are getting paid for all their downloads or not. Way to go 9thXchange! I think they are going to be huge once people understand the whole story of 9thXchange and what they have created.
Considering this site hasn’t been up for a long time, talking about the Edison video is kinda missing the point of what this site does. A lot of people in this country are very talented but you won’t find them on “American Idol” or MTV and you won’t find their creative works getting them signed to an “Atlantic Records” recording contract. Never the less they might be fun and something I enjoy viewing. These are the folks I expect to see on 9thXchange, everyday folks.
The internet has once again brought media to the masses, the idea that there should be a place where people (who are creative) can sell their content without having to have a bazillion dollar marketing company behind it is quite refreshing. It brings a lot of power to the average everyday person. You can now create a CD full of songs, or a video from your own camera and put it up online for sale and get royalties, etc.
It’s also very obvious from the site that companies that embrace selling “stock footage” really have found another place to market to sell their wares too. People use this kind of footage in various clips in regular video production and a lot of these “collectibles” are available on the 9thXchange site. This is very analogous to people using CLIP ART in newsletters. Even though I might not find a use for Edison’s work I could think of about four or more places I could use that worlds fair footage on the site to insert in as humor in my own “home” production, to add some a few extra smiles.
We are “early” in the history of home video production tools and people making their own videos and doing their “own” content. It’s something people will have to learn. Not everyone can go to “film school”. I liken whats going on now with “viral videos” to when the Apple Macintosh computer came out and everyone jumped on the desktop publishing bandwagon, and for the next year everyone’s documents looked like “randsome notes” with tons of miss used typefaces that didn’t follow any style rules. About a year later that cleared up.
I expect the market to do the same with this new “desktop video” production. You can’t blame 9thXchange for what early adopters are putting up for sale, it’s really the people not 9thXchange. However 9thXchange will be a venue for anything and everything. If you look at other sites, if you put a video up you might not even own the distribution rights to what you put up there. At least with 9thXchange your content still remains your own property.
I think the 9thXchange is a great idea, it lets people interested in selling all kinds of media and content do it reasonably while not trampling on your ownership rights to your intellectual property.
I also like their “digital collectible” idea because a lot of history has gotten lost damaged etc. Even Hollywood is having problems getting historic film saved, preserved, and available. What 9thXchange is really doing is fostering new interest in creative content and preserving “Americana” for the next generation. It’s cool you should check it out and see it from the perspective that it really is.
Don- thanks for your elequent and well constructed clarification of the business. Keep commenting!
I checked out the 9thx site, and see the same potential already pointed out in this blog. As a start-up, I notice they probably focused on getting the most ‘bang for the buck’ by launching with audio/video files using WMP DRM technology. However, as this space expands, it’s obvious there’s room for a wide variety of other digital genre, such as: eBooks, PDF files, eCourseware, CAD/CAM, etc. – anything which employs DRM technology to protect content owner rights. Looks like a revolution has begun!