Montreal Tech Watch

Last tuesday, weblo, a controversial Montreal startup, has launched a new section called digital assets. Internet users can list videos, accounts from social networks, email addresses, or blogs. The main destinations supported are currently youtube, google video, metacafe, myspace, facebook, gmail, yahoo, hotmail, blogger etc. For instance, a user can claim a youtube video; and then other weblo users can make offers to publish ads on the page. For an email addresses, the user is invited to insert ads in their signature. For a social network like facebook, it will be somehow “slipped” in your interests.

Weblo claims for instance that the most viewed video on youtube is worth $1,211,942.72. One of my regular hotmail address is worth $9.44, another montreal barcamp video is worth $29.93, and a blog like the scheme way is worth $981.25. Meanwhile, 400 friends on facebook will get your profile valued at $62,807. How they calculate those figures is beyond me, but they are high enough I guess to attract feeble-mindedplayful internet users.

Like weblo’s other features, there is a “pyramidal marketing” aspect to the new section. If you list the content, even though you don’t own it, you will get a share of the revenues when the real content owner comes to claim it. The new section is already full of users racing to find the most popular pages/videos/blog on the web.

Needless to say that you should think twice before trying this service. Most of the websites above forbid third-party advertisements and monetization in their terms of service. For me, this is also the real-life equivalent of going out with stickers and banners placed all over your clothes, or maybe read third-party ads when you talk with someone else. Ok, I might be going too far, but you see the picture. Rocky Mirza, CEO of Weblo defends the new section by saying “If the content is the new currency, then you should be getting paid for it”. He also said they are going “stealthy” with the new ads, slipping ads into often overlooked text fields, but also easily clicked-on by accident.

I guess weblo is going next to let users list stuff they don’t own and make money from it from pyramidal schemes. Oh wait, there have already done it.