Introducing Free IQ : The Marketplace for Ideas!
Still in beta but this has the potential to be the next ‘YouTube’ style phenomenon! Before you think of visiting what could be the ‘next big thing’, read my thoughts on the matter:
At the most basic level it is a fully searchable, peer rated, free to join, information media sharing and shopping portal.
At present media means pdf’s, audio and video clips – up to 100Mb in size. These files can be free or for sale, intro’s, samples or full ‘products’. There is no charge for uploading nor host and streaming and you choose if you want the items to be free – or sold. In the latter case, they handle all the e-commerce sales, taking a small commission and handling charge and handing over the rest to you.
Just to reiterate, they will host and stream your media for free. You even get an easy to edit web page to present yourself to the world and expound your expertise.
On first glance it is just appears to be another affiliate/marketing thing and indeed that’s what is populating it at the moment, but I believe this is narrow-mindedness on behalf of the person behind it, Brad Fallon. And yes, I have told him so more than once (in forums). That said, other pages on the site do extoll his full vision and foresight, as the following quote shows:
“If you are an expert on just about any topic, Free IQ is the perfect solution to display your ideas and showcase your knowledge.”
Joel Comm is one very well-known name (is his field) using it to promote and sell the likes of his .pdf Google Adsense guides. Others are selling seminars. Here’s a few other uses, things I’ve recommended to friends:
One couple have a luxury holiday apartment in the South of France. They are now considering making a promotional video of the place to share with potential renters.
Another primarily sells car and bike products through trade shows and will be using it to showcase videos of these. He also sells digital camcorders and will be doing clips to show off the quality of these.
Yet another group are musicians and are looking into this as a way on promoting and even selling their songs.
Early days yet – it’s still in beta development – but give it a year or so and a wide enough diversity of users and I reckon you will see explosive growth, move in terms of the number of people using it, and in terms of its actual usefulness.
One of the key feature they are promoting is that they base their search result ranking algorithms on the feedback and reviews by people all around the world. (Patents pending). The results page displays all the free content in the main area of the screen, while content that’s for sale is displayed in the small right-hand column, just like the paid search results or ‘sponsored results’ of all major search engines.
Anyway, go take a look, you could be surprised!
(Update Nov 2013: Or not, as it’s gone, now. The site is still there, just with a ‘coming soon’ logo. IF I remember I’ll revisit freeiq.com sometime, see what it morphs into).
