The Polymathica Vision

Polymathica is a global community of refinement and erudition. It is small now, but it is growing. The core of our growth strategy is the principle that people attract appropriate content and content attracts appropriate people. It is our belief that the end result, in about two years, will be a website, in many ways similar to Yahoo!, MSN.com, AOL.com, iGoogle, or Go.com, that will provide its approximately 2.5 million subscribers with print, audio and video content, social and professional networks, educational and career opportunities, products and services. This content will be notable in its refinement and erudition and should attract refined, erudite subscribers.

We believe that Polymathica is part of a trend away from ‘one site fits all’ homepages. As Internet delivered audio and video content emerges, about 10% of the Internet population will diverge into values based communities such as the 300,791 subscribers of Gaia.com. About 5% will diverge into intellectually sophisticated communities. These communities will be fuzzy sets. In other words, some subscribers will be completely immersed in the community while other subscribers may only connect with one function. Content, networks, products and services that were created primarily to serve the Polymathica community may find customers elsewhere as well.

We are at the very beginning of the community building process. We are currently growing primarily through member referrals. People may become a ‘Polymathican’ by joining our facebook group, going to Polymathica.com and subscribing to our mailing list, or by following us on this blog. Community growth is greatly assisted by inviting friends or acquaintances who are, in your assessment, inclined toward refinement and erudition. Consistent with the theory that content attracts people and people attract content, when you invite someone to Polymathica, you are assisting in the process of attracting the kind of content, networks, products and services you desire.

We have created, for those who want to provide content, networks, products and services to a refined, erudite community a Polymathica Founders’ Group. If this interests you, simply click on the Founders Group link.

Polymathica Bloggers and Talkers

Based upon research by Hollingworth, Simonton, Dennissen, et al, we conclude that the upper five percent of the population in intellectual and cultural sophistication does not have sufficient access to appropriate news, analysis and commentary. This is a market of approximately 35 million English speakers that, in the Industrial Age, was left substantially underserved. Of these, at least 2.5 million will self-identify as holding the values of refinement and erudition. One of the primary purposes of Polymathica is to create a place similar to The Huffington Post or Townhall.com. However, in our case, rather than being for liberal or conservative news, analysis and commentary, it will provide a broad spectrum of topics presented with refinment and erudition.

Because Polymathica subscribers are erudite, they are also prodigious consumers of information compared to the general population. Consequently, Polymathica, once constructed, can support a broad spectrum of content. By way of example, 2.5 million people creating three page views per day at $.01 per page view will create a little over $27 million of ad revenue per year, which, at Technorati’s estimate of top blogger income of $200,000 per year will support 136 top bloggers. This is sufficient to satisfy the expectations of even the most engaged Polymathica subscriber. However, we believe that Polymathica will be able to support an even larger population of top bloggers.

Bloggers are currently morphing into media personalities and media personalities into bloggers. In the near future, instigated by the emergence of Internet delivery of audio and video content, people who currently are bloggers, columnists, radio talk show hosts, television news personalities, etc. will begin to consider themselves as multimedia personalities. Some will write books. Some will tweet. Some will produce an audio news magazine. Others will produce a video round table discussion. Each will consider the vast and ever expanding array of technologies for delivering their thoughts to the market and choose the ones that work best for them. Rush Limbaugh attempted television and failed. Bill O’Rielly tried radio and failed.

This means, that, because their income is coming from several sources, the number of top bloggers that Polymathica will eventually be able to support is greater than 136. Also, many bloggers who cater to the upper 5% of the population in intellectual and cultural sophistication will find readership in the 90% - 95% of this population that is not a Polymathcia subscriber. We also emphasize, as is the case with the Huffington Post and Townhall.com, that there will be a place for what Technorati refers to as the ‘Citizen Blogger.’ In other words, in the Information Age, people will interact with their community in many ways, one of which will be a blog. It is not done primarily for profit, but rather serves as a super-elaborated personal profile page. Because non-professional bloggers are perfectly capable of making cogent observations, the line between citizen blogger and professional blogger is vague.

The Internet tradition today is that blogs are ad supported and audio commentary is a premium membership feature. The typical 24/7 membership fee is between $30 and $55 per year. As Internet radio becomes the norm, we expect the cost of these premium memberships to go down, probably to about $10 to $15 per year. In this way, people will custom design their news, analysis and commentary access. It may include a video hard news feed, an audio hard news feed, a half dozen audio and video analysis and commentary products, another ten or twelve subscriptions in the Humanities, Science and Technology, Business, Sports, Fashion, Lifestyles, and Spirituality, along with free ad supported print content.

In conclusion, we believe that Polymathica will be of sufficient size to provide its subscribers with a broad spectrum of blogs, audiocasts, videocasts, produced video content, etc. as well as a social architecture that will allow them to share and discuss what they have read, heard, viewed or thought. It won't be easy, but it will be worthwhile for those of us who have found current options sophomoric and superficial. We heartily encourage you to join our facebook page or follow us here.