Will the Digital Content Marketplaces Survive?

OK, a few themes at work here: suddenly, you can see the digital content marketplaces cropping up everywhere (going for the small guy, so to speak): yesterday there was a story in WSJ about RedPaper and Lulu.com. Both the companies have big backing: RedPaper has Adobe behind it and Lulu.com is backed by the founder of RedHat. And then there’s BitPass, which I’ve written about before…(though technically it is not a marketplace)

So just when you think it is a return to dotcom days, another digital content marketplace is launching tomorrow: the company’s called Digizaar and has connections to Ronald Rivest, through Peppercoin. Not that it downplays the connections: “The Digizaar team is comprised of students from MIT, Williams College, and Brandeis University. Based on their knowledge of the emerging Peppercoin technology, Chris Rivest and Mike Grossman decided they would like to apply this new market place to independent digital artists. Chris and his brother Alex, also a member of the Digizaar team, are the sons of Ron Rivest, founder of RSA Data Security, VeriSign and Peppercoin Inc.” An overdose on connections, if you ask me…

I know at least two more ready to launch in the next couple of months…how long before eBay jumps in and blows everyone out of the market?

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