for W3c validation

Though many people have been blogging about the “Blogging for Dollars” cover story of the most recent business 2.0 magazine, I thought “The Smartest Companies to Start Now” was just as fascinating (if not more so). The B2Day mentioned the article in this post and goes on to mention the obvious (in my opinion), “Ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s what you do with them that counts.”

Two of the ideas that jumped out at me were The eBay of Product Placement and the Social Marketplace (for complete list, click here). 

• The Social Marketplace- Pretty simple concept- merge social networking and online marketplaces where people buy and sell their own content. Maybe…if only eBay and Myspace were combined (that’s kinda the idea in concept I think). Jim Breyer of Accel Partners is willing to give $10 Million for a 10 person team to build a prototype of the site.
• The eBay of Product Placement- The idea is the create an online auction site to sell product placement for Hollywood studios. To me, if successful, this idea can knock one out of the ballpark. What happens if consumers stop paying attention to traditional advertisements and advertisers stop paying for them? Where do the ad dollars go? Product placement will be king. Product placement has been around for years, but it’s not easy for advertisers to participate. I think an auction site like this could be what makes it easy for small advertisers to get mainstream exposure for their product at a reasonable price point. Whoever makes it efficient for corporations and small businesses alike to get their product inside a television show or hit blockbuster movie will have a huge leg up as a 1st mover in the race to capitalize on product placement. Roger Lee of Battery Ventures is willing to give $6 Million to get a site running within 18 months. Entrepreneurs out there- if I was contemplating starting a business, this is certainly the venture I would pursue!