http://www.bix.com/entry/3475

if every entrepreneur worried about big corporations moving fast enough to chase their latest venture / service / feature, there would be no innovation happening… fortunately here in Silicon Valley, that’s far from the case.

while i certainly don’t think FOX or MySpace or Ross Levinson are dumb guys, it’s tough for them to move as fast as a startup. their advantage is massive audience & distribution (and a ready checkbook), but their disadvantage is bureaucracy and incumbency.

eBay wasn’t able to stop PayPal from being the default payment service. MySpace wasn’t able to stop YouTube from being the default video hosting / watching service. and neither Slashdot nor NYT nor Yahoo were able to stop Digg & Delicious from becoming the default news & bookmarking service of choice.

entrepreneurs shouldn’t be looking in the rear view mirror worried about dinosaurs catching up to them… they should be facing forward and watching how fast they take the next sharp turn while stepping on the gas as hard as they dare.

my .02,

- dave mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com/

The question is not whether Bix will succeed in this venture, but when Fox will copy it. Imagine a “wild card” secenario where two contestants chosen by the online audience get inserted to increase the running length of the season and provide extra time to pump advertisments at the audience both online and off.

I’m sure a few of the million devoted Idol fans would love another chance to vote….

If only we could get them as enthused about their public officials.

The problem with the American Idol comparison is that despite it’s long tail appearance AI is very tightly programmed. You see maybe a hundred out of tens of thousands of auditions. You see what the producers choose, not what you choose. Only a very small percentage of people in those massive lines to audition ever get to sing for Simon, Paula and the “other guy”.

The rushes of AI prior to editing would make for some terrible television.

For instance, a contest to surface an Internet based candidate for a government office. People could submit 1 to 2 minute videos of their positions, and viewers vote for their favorites. Then via a bracket system the candidates get narrowed down.

After a couple of eliminations, then debates are set up with candidates adressing eachother in a point-counter point model. You eventually end up with two front runners and then run a live debate between the two, with the winner getting $50,000 to run an Internet based campaign.

Sure, you might not unseat anyone, but as a publicity stunt I think it’d take off quite nicely.

Sorry, wrong Bix…

“If you think you’re talented, or if you get a laugh just looking at those who think they are, you’ll enjoy Bix.com. It’s easy to get the hang of, and it has a lot of potential to expand. We think people of all ages with enjoy this user-friendly Web site.”

I disagree that seeing really bad submissions is much of a selling point. True, part of the American Idol success is seeing bad people, but that’s on TV. For years bad on TV was something out of the ordinary, a novelty. On the web, bad is pretty common and the joke wears thin long before a song ends.

Without TV legitimacy, I think the concept loses some lustre. Reality contests on the Internet are interesting, but I don’t think this one will take off.

You’ll see a good bump of early adopters trying to get in with the hopes that there are few entrants, but after it reaches a certain point, they’ll taper off despite the good prize and the low barrier to entry.

http://digg.com/tech_news/Onli.....00_Contest
http://web2list.com/forum.php?logoid=1300

You don’t need a great studio to show your personality, or to put on an extremely lousy, extremely entertaining show!

I do like the idea though, of moving a concept like “Idol” onto the web.

Lame.