But see... in my view, the work involved is not contacting people saying "would you write content for this?". I can't say I was entirely naive, but I trusted them too much early on that they understood my concerns - they didn't.
In this case, if you want 50 well-respected professors, you have to go out of your way to identify 100, then identify potential concerns (licensing issues with existing publishers and universities) and solve that problem. Building a website for people to upload slideshows and movies is a solved problem (hundreds of times over). Building a process to extract out valuable content from people who would otherwise not create digital content, then monetize that, that is not at all a solved problem, at least in many verticals.
Certainly this space will get solved - probably in the next few years - but it'll be a licensing deal between the larger publishers and universities and someone who builds a platform for them to generate revenue from these captive audiences.
Of course, I might be 100% wrong, but judging by the number of students I talk to with "why isn't there a ..." ideas, I don't think so. most of the time the reason there isn't a good FOO when you're in the education world (as a student or teacher) it's because there's policies and purchasing procedures which prohibit it, not because someone hasn't thought of the idea yet.
In this case, if you want 50 well-respected professors, you have to go out of your way to identify 100, then identify potential concerns (licensing issues with existing publishers and universities) and solve that problem. Building a website for people to upload slideshows and movies is a solved problem (hundreds of times over). Building a process to extract out valuable content from people who would otherwise not create digital content, then monetize that, that is not at all a solved problem, at least in many verticals.
Yes, someday, someone's going to crack this. I really don't think it'll be "some naive kid". The way you're saying it makes it sound like it's the "naiveté" which is the magic potion in all this (gosh he just didn't know what he didn't know and just 'made it happen'). That's a nice narrative, and does happen now and then - people win the lottery now and then too. But by and large it doesn't happen that way.
Certainly this space will get solved - probably in the next few years - but it'll be a licensing deal between the larger publishers and universities and someone who builds a platform for them to generate revenue from these captive audiences.
Of course, I might be 100% wrong, but judging by the number of students I talk to with "why isn't there a ..." ideas, I don't think so. most of the time the reason there isn't a good FOO when you're in the education world (as a student or teacher) it's because there's policies and purchasing procedures which prohibit it, not because someone hasn't thought of the idea yet.