Edgeio launches the Internet’s first distributed paid content platform

edgeio Corporation, based in Palo Alto, California, today announced the launch, in preview, of the world’s first distributed “paid content” platform. The platform allows a content creator – say an analyst, a researcher, a band, a filmmaker, a magazine or newspaper publisher or a web publisher – to distribute their valuable content, and have it sold, onto any web site that wishes to publish it.

Keith Teare, edgeio’s founder and CEO described it:

“We are making it possible for valuable content to be made available for sale on any web site. The web site does not need an ecommerce system, or a billing system – edgeio takes care of both. We have two customers for whom we work to make this possible. First a content creator who has content that they would like to sell and have distributed. The content creator comes to edgeio and tells us about their content and we give them the means of publishing it. Second a publisher, whose main goal is to add revenue to their web site. The publisher comes to edgeio and can choose to become a point of sale for any paid content that they wish to be associated with. Any web site in the world can now become a point of sale for the things they are passionate about.”

The paid content platform brings into existence a new – digital only – form of classified ad, what we call a “transactional classified” The initial goal of transactional classifieds will be to facilitate the distribution and of digital content – video, audio, text, files for download, tickets, resumes, virtual gifts and other valuable content. Later edgeio intends to release additional forms of transactional classified using its distributed paid content platform.

The initial uses of the system are expected to be in three primary categories:

• Publishers who have free, advertising supported, web sites who would like to publish paid articles alongside their normally free ones. This would likely appeal to former analysts with blogs and highly targeted readerships who specialize in areas – like technology – where there is a demand for their research.
• Publishers who have subscription only web sites where their content is locked up and only available to subscribers. These publishers can take advantage of the edgeio system by opening up their content on a per-item basis to a far larger readership than their subscriber base constitutes.
• Publishers of paid digital content whose content is mainly available through one or more centralized stores online. Digital Music downloads, Research reports, Videos, Tickets are all offered in this form. These publishers will be able to turn the enthusiasts for their products into points of sale. By way of example, fans of rock bands with blogs will be able to become places to buy the music they love to listen to.
  

Content creators can upload their content at http://www.edgeio.com/view/paidcontent one at a time or can submit it in bulk using edgeio’s edgedirect service.

Edgeio’s business model for transactional classifieds will enable a three-way revenue share. Firstly edgeio will receive a share of all transactions. The content creator takes a share. The content creator can choose to enable affiliates to become additional sales points for the content and can define how its share is split with an affiliate. In that case their content always appears with a “Resell this Item” link, allowing affiliates to sign up as additional points of sale.

The edgeio paid content platform will be launched today at the Gnomedex conference in Seattle, Washington. Chris Pirillo, the publisher of Lockergnome and former TechTV presenter, will be the first to make available his content for sale and for distribution. Attendees at the conference will be given a coupon code to allow them to purchase his “ebooks” for free, whilst the rest of the world will need to pay the full price. The ebooks can be found at http://lockergnome.edgeio.net. Web sites will be able to opt in to resell the ebooks and take a revenue share from successful sales.

Edgeio has filed patents covering the functionality of and methods used in its distributed paid content platform.