A few months ago we completed the initial development of a site called SmartClips.com (www.smartclips.com). SmartClips aspires to be a marketplace for the sale and purchase of video and audio content. SmartClips never really took off, perhaps in large part due to the fact that we didn't give it the marketing focus and attention it needed. In terms of the technology and development effort, we have a lot invested in SmartClips. We'd like to make a push to get it off the ground, but we're debating whether we should first alter our business model. I'll get to some specific questions at the end of this post, but first some background. SmartClips aims to be the engine or platform that would make it easy for a content publisher to monetize video content. Some important aspects of our service: - Non-technical publishers can use SmartClips to monetize their content - We provide free hosted stores that can be customized by the publisher. - We have a revenue sharing model with no up-front cost for publishers. - We have built support for a two-tier affiliate model with lifetime residuals. The affiliate system is "baked" into the free stores we host on behalf of publishers. This system allows individual publishers develop a network of affiliates who promote the individual publisher's products. - Given that our aim is to be an open marketplace, publishers are free to set pricing, licensing terms (days, weeks, months, unlimited, etc) and delivery mode (download or online delivery). In short, we try to provide all the services that would be costly for an average publisher to develop on their own. Unfortunately, our SmartClips initiative is at a standstill right now. Our limited efforts at promoting the service yielded no publishers. The major question we're trying to answer is "why". - One possible answer is that the site design and copy does a really poor job of communicating the business opportunity for publishers and affiliates. - Another possible answer is that our business model needs to changed or refined. In either case, we understand that there is work to be done. However, it's important for us to attack these problems in the right order. If the business model is off, we would probably want to address that before addressing site design and copy. So, what do you think? Does the SmartClips.com have potential? What do you think we should do to attract publishers and affiliates? Should we change our approach?