I don’t understand the premise behind the new site Big Think, which is profiled in today’s New York Times. The article calls it “a YouTube for ideas” and says the business model is to “attract enough viewers, then sell advertising,” but why would we expect a wonky general interest video site to ever become large enough to become profitable from advertising revenue? We already have YouTube and the videos posted there of intellectuals debating ideas aren’t exactly setting the world on fire. While I’d love to see the site succeed, it seems like a dubious business proposition.