Thanks for your thoughts. Really appreciate hearing them. For what its worth, we just launched 2 weeks ago so I would be surprised if you had heard of it.
I'm well aware of the lack of mass consumer appeal right this instant, and you're quite right that niche journalism is exactly what we are going after right now. The pitch will become much more consumer oriented in a few more months when our offering becomes more appealing to "random visitors."
For balance on the video aspect - I actually significantly prefer having a video that saves me the time/effort of scrolling around and reading, and this certainly seems to be a popular trend.
("Some of the people, some of the time" etc. etc.)
I'm amazed that reading is not about 10 times as fast as listening to someone talk in a video for most people on this site. I can't stand videos for this very reason: my time is limited, and listening to someone drawl on without being able to search or scan is maddening.
We've had quite a high conversion rate, so I'm pleased with it too. We're selling the journalist as the atomic unit instead of the story, so although people often say "why not show more content?" I don't believe they would convert anyway -- and at such an early stage, I'd rather focus on the people who are passionate about the product and journalism.
I'm well aware of the lack of mass consumer appeal right this instant, and you're quite right that niche journalism is exactly what we are going after right now. The pitch will become much more consumer oriented in a few more months when our offering becomes more appealing to "random visitors."
For what it's worth, we think we are building a wedge that ties nicely into this http://ycombinator.com/rfs1.html