John Bonaccorso: Inside 9thX.com

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9thX.com kicks off our Network Businesses series. Its technology allows digital content creators and distributors to create their own shops for buying and reselling that content. 9thX.com makes its money by taking a 5% cut each time digital content is sold through its system.

9thX.com kicks off our Network Businesses series. For our purposes, Network Businesses are those that exploit unique features of the Internet in their business model. Often these businesses have a unique information asset that they are able to charge for. Further, they then exploit the network to make that asset even more valuable. This model lies at the heart of major upheaval in many industries.

As explained by John Bonaccorso, 9thX.com's CEO, the 9thX.com allows people to buy and sell digital media. They are an "end-to-end" solution that allows content producers and distributors to sell their content and receive royalty payments each time the content is resold. Some highlights from this conversation:

  • 9thX.com allows content producers to be paid directly for their work. Most niche content producers have too small a market for an advertising revenue model to work.
  • 9thX.com spends no money on marketing. All marketing is done by word of mouth through the web site and distributors.
  • 9thX.com makes its money by controlling the digital rights management system that makes royalty-based payments possible. Each time an asset is purchased or resold, 9thX.com gets 5%.
  • 9thX.com's computing infrastructure is supplied by Amazon's EC2 and S3 services.

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3 Comments

wow what a great concept
Stephanie Schade on June 13, 2010 7:29 PM
The 9th exchange or 9thX.com sounds like a pretty revolutionary and creative idea. The aspect of buying, selling, and becoming your own publisher is a different idea that works well with the changing times. I like how John compared his business to “the eBay of digital products”. You can really tell how the company is unique in its creation. I like how the structure of the business is from start to finish between buyers and sellers and that they carter to four main areas. I also liked how he described the make-up of the business as a mix between “eBay selling, Apple ITunes downloads, and MySpace network”, this give the company a visual layout for consumers. I think that it is also neat that you are allowed to resell content that you purchase, where most companies do not allow you to do that. I like that they have thought about the privacy of their customers and take care of the customer service as well. I also think that the 9thX.com is tapping into the niche market for this industry, which can be very lucrative if done right. I do wonder if other companies have a problem with the digital information being resold. This would be a concern of mine and I would be interested to find out how this is handled. This is a great idea and concept for a business. Stephanie Schade
Nikole Viltz on November 29, 2010 10:43 AM
I found this interview very interesting. The specific part that was most intriguing was raising money for the new corporation. I found it very interesting that John Bonaccorso recommended reaching out towards the family members and bring them into the development of the new business. It is often that family ties and close relationships can be affected because of the success or lack of success within a company. Not only can the financial and emotional attachment put strain on the business and friendships, but also even if the company does not last forever, the damage may stay forever. As stated in the interview “they will remember it for the rest of your life”. Because John had previous experiences with venture capital companies it seemed that he was gradually growing through his experience. I am just now being introduced into the Entrepreneur world and I have found that this is one of the best ways to survive in it. Being able to earn millions of dollars for these organizations has put John in the position that he is able to earn more and more money by using his past experiences. It is clear that John must have great knowledge on the potential of businesses and I will apply this to my future endeavors. Investing in a company such as Apple Co in the early stages and still struggling demonstrates his keen sense of recognizing potential, which I hope to grow and develop. In order to be an entrepreneur this trait will allow me to strive above those who cannot recognize what a person or corporation is capable of. I like that John has also considered the advancement in technology and selling habits on the Internet and has created this new website that combines all of it. John has the capability to set a path to new ways of selling, reselling, and creating products for purchase. Protecting those who are selling and buying online is a system that will always be needed as long as there is an Internet. The explanation of how the costs of the Internet also touch on certain points that I was not aware of. Though I am aware that the Internet is not free, the cost breakdown is a topic I am not very educated on. The digital rights management is something that I did not know much about and clearly there are not many available (only a dozen available in the past). This shows that not everything on the Internet can be free. I thought that the brief elevator pitch was the most informative. The quick over view of the company within only a few minutes gave me the full understanding of what was going on and then the previous interviews were more informative after listening to it.

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