Regardless of the medium, and one of the reasons the talent show is so popular, is that people are increasingly demanding their 15 seconds of fame. As television continues its downward trend, fragmented audiences and increasingly ignored by the ad market, the real home of the talent show is online. The Web 2.0 world is the perfect medium for the democratic judgement of the nation’s talent, rated and judged by other uses as opposed to z list celebrities – far more democratic all round.

An exemplar of this is the newly launched and rather aptly titled 15 Seconds Of Fame (15SOF.com) web entertainment site. Part talent competition, part social network and part video sharing site, 15 Seconds of Fame is the next generation for a talent show hungry population – a web-based entertainment company giving aspiring performers the opportunity to share their talents with the world. It’s democracy Web 2.0 in action; anyone can compete, anyone can judge and anyone can win.

However, allied to the sheer entertainment level and opportunity to bask in your 15 seconds of fame is a serious business model, ensuring that those with genuine talent are rewarded financially. This model goes some way to sidestepping the downturn in the advertising market too and this is how: for years, brands have used contests to drive membership, brand awareness and engagement on and off the web - however, for 15SOF.com, contests are its actual business model.

On the site, entrants pay a nominal fee each time they enter a daily contest and the winner, based on the highest average rating from user votes in each category, will receive a percentage of the entry fees. This pay-to-participate model is a unique way of monetising social media without relying on the ever diminishing pool of advertising revenue. It’s simple; it perfectly marries people’s desire to share their voice, contribute content and have their 15 seconds of fame. Oh, and if they win, rather than have to spend a week in the priory, they will be paid for their talent.

Expect to see a great deal more where this came from. Technologically, sites like 15SOF offer a wealth of capabilities, meeting the demands of today’s short attention span culture – packed with just the highlights. Entries are submitted to various contest categories and the community votes for their favourite.

This is an exciting experiment for a new model of social media monetisation. Social media contests have been successful in attracting users to participate but have rarely been considered as the sole business model. From a technological aspect, expect to see a lot more of this as social media platforms such as the Reality Digital Opus platform, which was used to power 15SOF.com become increasingly advanced and flexible to use.

Designed specifically to handle the rigorous video, user-generated content and media management needs required by most media intensive deployments, for 15SOF.com, the Opus platform introduces custom features unique to 15SOF.com’s contest model, including a video and photo wall of latest entries on the homepage, filmstrip navigation of other entries in a category, as well as the back-end reporting and functionality such as promo codes, payment override and contest duration. In fact, the birth of the site is a lesson in virtual partnerships itself; devised by John Bonaccorso, a veteran tech entrepreneur from Florida who partnered with Michigan-based creative shop Curve Detroit for the design and California and London based Reality Digital to power the site.

So, whilst TV Executives continually search for the Holy Grail talent show formula, they may have missed what is right in front of their noses; a technologically advanced web 2.0 social media world where users from around the world can upload their own videos, showcasing their talents, interact with others, democratically vote and rate others - and if they are lucky, or indeed very talented, their 15 seconds of fame may well just see them rewarded, not just with fame, but with hard cash.