The Problem:
Newspapers are dying. That’s not news. Better said, the old business model of newspapers is dying. Effectively monetizing content is the problem the industry’s facing.
The Business
An app that allows a story to be sponsored.
Real time bidding on the story – advertisers bid on views, likes, tweets, retweets, emails, other shares, etc. The story is then forever sponsored and the advertiser then forever pays “trails” to story owner.
Doableness
The engineering is complex, but not impossible. It’s best run as it’s own ad network. If a advertiser happens to sponsor a viral piece, they’ll have probably paid virtually nothing for it, but they will have paid. Win-win. If they sponsor a piece that was supposed to have been good, but turned out to be less than, they won’t have burned as much money as they otherwise could have.
My Thoughts
It is, of course, similar to display advertising. But it’s not the same. And it’s subtle differences make it worthy of success.