1. Use copyrighted content that is highly sought after.
2. Buy traffic, make it look like ur site is exploding
3. With suspect growth sign partnerships w/copyright
Worked well for youtube though don't think they had to buy traffic 1 and 3 worked really well for them.
Note: not trying to be negative here, just reviewing/studying the rise of various start-ups. How they got to be successful!
Exactly the same way I have felt about both Scribd and Justin.tv.
Here is another "algorithm" to gain traction, last seen at Ning: 1) allow adult content - in their case adult oriented social networks 2) gain traction, 3) jettison the adult content to clean up your image.
At least this second algorithm has no legal issues, but third party copyrighted content, I have serious legal/ethical issues with.
I have never understood why Y Combinator never saw that as a problem.
