If the world of Web video were the same as the commercial media world of TV and movies, Rick Astley would be the richest man in Britain. OK Go would be the new U2. And YouTube would look a lot like Tongal, a new platform for crowdsourcing video ads.Tongal, currently in beta and open to invites only, has taken the quest for the elusive online business model a step further than ad-based sites by creating a system that rewards user input, while (hopefully) remaining profitable: The company works with corporate partners looking for a meme-worthy TV advertisement or other promotional video. Instead of relying on a single user or small team to conceptualize, plan, and execute a video, Tongal breaks down these steps into 'stages' of the contest. The best ideas are turned into the best pitches, which are then turned into the best videos.Users can come up with ideas, write pitches, film videos or any combination of those steps and get paid to do it. Once you have a whole assortment of corporate-sponsored Numa Numas, users pick the one they think is most likely to win the approval of the final round of judging, also for a cash prize.Lending Tree, Bringit.com, TopCoder and Comedy.com are
all either running contests or will be soon. And the payouts for
winning aren't too shabby, with the eventual first place winner in the
video production stage of Comedy.com's commercial parody contest
winning $1,000. YouTube users have certainly been willing to do
extensive video work for nothing more than notoriety, so the concept of
crowdsourcing advertising like this doesn't seem too far-fetched.
At this stage, the site's user interface isn't nearly as simple or intuitive as YouTube. A few times, I found myself clicking around in an endless circle of links before I realized exactly how to get to what I was looking for. This isn't to say that the user experience is altogether bad--it just doesn't have the
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