Great original posting, Russell, thanks. I blogged about it and posted at Forum Oxford.

But even more interesting discussion here at the thread, thank JMac and Drew.

Drew – from my point as well, my gut says, this has been tried a million times to lack of success. But also – in full honesty – I said so of Blyk at its first announcement as well (along the lines of “what in the world are these famous Finns doing now in this hopeless swamp, as in Pekka Ala-Pietila former President of Nokia, Antti Ohrling the famed advertising man of Finland and Marko Ahtisaari the famed son of Martti – who just now won the Nobel Peace prize a few days ago). And look how wrong I was when people like Jonathan got involved with the Blyk concept and made it work.

We will watch Sayso and I wish it the very best of luck. If you do find it makes a success out of its business model, do come hop over also to my blog at http://www.communities-dominate.com and I’ll happily blog about it. We do need successful innovation in our industry.

But I’ll be honest with you, I am a bit skeptical; you might want to tweak your model into something that is more likely to succeed in the mobile data space, we do have a 200 billion dollar industry on our hands this year, there are tons of business ideas that are making oodles of cash to their owners ha-ha..

Tomi Ahonen
http://www.tomiahonen.com

In response to your question, we believe the thing that sets Sayso apart is that we allow subscribers to say, “this is how much my time and attention are worth.” And then we turn around and allow advertisers to say, “This is how much I’m willing to spend to push my message out.” (This is similar to what Ad Brite is doing successfully in the online ad space.)

We believe the marketplace concept, rather than dictating to both the subscriber and the advertiser what their time/message is worth, represents a fundamental difference between Sayso and other “paidvertising” models.

We believe that advertising has value to marketers and consumers when done right and with consideration for the audience’s time and attention. We hope that Sayso will restore that ideal in a way that benefits everyone.

Thanks also for pointing out the benefit of targeting in direct marketing

From painful experience I can attest to seeing ideas that seem perfectly reasonable being taken in an entirely different direction when in public.

Without wanting to speculate any further I would just say that if the cash benefit is directly based on profile type, it is feasible that profile type will be adjusted to maximise cash benefit.

I hope it all works out for you and I will join many others who will watch with anticipation.

1. You’re absolutely right. Some value is lost when you compare a Sayso subscriber to someone that is on an advertiser’s “house list.” What Sayso, and other companies who follow some form of this model, are offering is a way to rent a targeted, permission-ready list. We feel that both house-list and purchased-list models will eventually take hold (just as they have in other areas of direct marketing). However, these are the advantages that a Sayso-style model offers…

First, advertisers can be up and running with a significant list quickly and without investing dollars and time in building a list. Second, house lists are made up of loyal customers — individuals the advertiser already has a relationship with. A very valuable audience, to be sure. But that model will never allow advertisers to directly target new customers because without an existing relationship those customers won’t opt-in. Third, our model allows for targeting — something that is vital to effective direct marketing. On the other hand, most advertisers who have built “house lists” know little about the individuals who have opted-in.

2. We expect, in fact we even plan to help, our subscribers set an “optimum price” based on past data. However, we don’t expect profile fraud to be a significant issue. That will so hurt the relevancy of the messages subscribers receive (and the value proposition is relevant ads + payment) that we believe most subscribers will avoid it.

3. Obviously subscribers paying to receive texts is an issue. And you’re right, adjusting your price is the only way to deal with it right now. However, we expect unlimited text plans (or even unlimited everything plans) to become commonplace in the near future.

Thanks for your thoughts. Hope I was able to address them.

This model has been tried many times online, as well as in mobile (first time in 2000) and every time it’s failed. What makes you think SaySo is going to be different? It’s a serious question.

Russell