A new way to access quality content online

I've been saying this is what magazine publishers should be doing for digital issues for years. At least mainstream popular mags.

For their print editions they mail surveys to a subset of readers, use those results to show advertisers what their subscriber base is made of. The advertisers create a one-size-fits-all print ad for all those people.

And then for digital... they continuing doing the same thing and wonder why no one wants to pay for their ads!

Deliver a digital issue for free each month with a 3 to 5 question survey before download. BUILD ON the results each month, so you get a personalized ad profile for that reader. And then DELIVER appropriate targeted ads in the issue to that reader.

I realize I'm not revealing anything new or ground-breaking, but I've worked in the publishing industry and you wouldn't believe how many high-level people don't understand this at all.

Not only are the digital magazine products right now terrible themselves, the ad model is completely broken, and I've seen almost no progress on either front. Time is running out for these guys.

This is totally genius. The lesser of two evils I admit when compared to pay-for-content, but a pretty good gimmick. I think the model of paying for things in essentially data is totally revolutionary. Its been implicitly done for so long, and we've become desensitised to it - if its as simple as me lending a click with no further disruptions I see that a fair trade, and its a currency I'd be happy to pay with.

In the same breath I hope its implemented sparingly, and future iterations don't fall too far from the tree, its one of the few things I've seen that could also seriously disrupt the flow of the net. Having to click one of those, and fill out a CAPTCHA would seriously get on my nerves and stem the smoothness of browsing IMO.

There's definitely a startup or two to come out of this space.

I'm not sure how well this will work. Users care about accessing content, not answering surveys.

A user can achieve their goal faster by clicking the top result instead of reading the question. Browser extensions like AdBlock can make the process even 'better' by auto-completing the surveys.

Correcting for these biases is problematic, especially if the user's true answer to the question correlates with things like AdBlock usage or patience.

Three days before April first. Google wouldn't drop their annual gag this early would they?