Saysme.tv didn't invent the loudmouth, but, as the company's logo indicates, it sure hopes to sell him a megaphone.
The business plan works like this: Saysme.tv offers a service over the Internet that streamlines the submission process for homemade television advertising and offers cheap slices of cable-TV time -- perhaps as little as $6 for a 25-second spot, assuming you are O.K. with appearing on CNN Headline News sometime next week in parts of Charlotte, N.C., in the wee hours.
The hope is to get commissions from the legions of small-time commentators, political bloggers and local advertisers, who may have as strong opinions as T. Boone Pickens on renewable energy, but do not have his millions to bombard the public with them. Instead, the dream goes, there would be millions of individual commentators placing ads a few at time, market by market, either by uploading their own ads YouTube style or choosing from those already hosted at the site. Let the buckshot bombardment begin.
The Web site is a new example of an online phenomenon once considered powerful enough to have its own buzz word -- disintermediation -- which has been applied to auctions, entertainment and classified ads.
In the cable-TV advertising version, no longer would placing an ad be expensive and time consuming, with its own arcane rituals and legal boilerplate.
Instead, the path from computer screen to TV screen could be nearly smooth, efficient if you prefer, and in a generally accessible prices range, though more likely to be around $60 than the occasional $6 slot that one can hunt for on the site.