BigThink.com: Niche Social Network, Intellectual Audience

This morning I came across bigthink.com, which is kind of a mix between YouTube and Facebook, but geared around 'big ideas'; questions and statements on a range of meta and physical issues, such as faith, arts, business etc, with 'expert' opinion as well as user generated media either in response or as new ideas/questions. 

Although anyone can go, watch, read and comment, you must register to 'respond' (i.e. answer a question with your own text or media) or to put forward new ideas. Also, users can rate all content on how interesting it is, with the most interesting rising to the top. 

They've got some good angel backers, and enough funding and contacts through these to have some big names in arts, business and culture already on there with videos. The site has a nice layout, clearly defined categories, and was easy to sign up and get going. 

The profiles are currently very simple (photo, about me and interests), however the main interaction will be the videos, questions and responses - i.e. users define their personality by their actions and thoughts, rather than what they simply put on their profile. 

It's an interesting concept, and one that I think will be successful. Expect to see lots of niche groups form, of people who care deeply about a particular subject and wish to be able to debate and share thoughts and ideas between themselves, as well as heated debate on political and current affairs issues, with a lot less spam that on YouTube.

Marketing Possibilities

A couple of the guys from BigThink.com talked about the website on Fox News - watch the video on the BigThink site here. In it they talked about three tiers of marketing possibilities: 1. standard adverts 2. Category sponsorship 3. Official reporting and comments from company grandees released as media on the site.

It will be interesting to see how (3) works out, as if the videos aren't interesting they'll simply be voted down and will disappear. (2) could possibly be very powerful for niche areas, possibly combined with (3) (e.g. Starbucks sponsoring a category on coffee, with talks from it's head coffee baristas on blends and techniques, or book companies sponsoring book discussion channels, and releasing interviews with authors etc). 

(1) could also prove valuable, because of the high quality audience, who are likely to be of an older demographic even than Facebook. 

It's still to early to really see how it will work out, but this is definitely one to watch. There's a lot of buzz about niche social networks for 2008, and the success of these will help push the drive for user control of their social graph. Take a look, let me know your thoughts.