Just yesterday I read an interesting post over on Blog Maverick. Mark Cuban basically lays out a way to create a self-policing environment for some forms of online content (specifically written content). I’ve had similar ideas for some time and even emailed some of them to Stephen King years ago when he was attempting to go straight to consumers with his online, chapter-by-chapter novel (which, btw, failed). From my perspective, the bottom line has always been: people are selfish and creators have to make it worth everyone’s while – especially fans – to not “share” virtual content. In King’s case, I recommended things like assigning a “lottery” code to a legitimate download; something that could later be used in some way. For example, including a fan’s name and details into a future novel. Or meeting and having dinner with a small group of fans during a book tour. Stuff like that. More than one entry (say, from someone who received an illegally-shared download) negated all submissions from that one lottery number. Tie that download to something they might want later, and watch fans guard that content tooth and nail.

Now I’ve just read about Google’s new service over on C|Net that seems to tie right into Cuban’s idea. From the C|Net article:

Google is set to launch on Monday a free Web analytics service that will let companies see exactly how visitors interact with their Web site and how their advertising campaigns are faring.

Google Analytics will let Web site owners see exactly where visitors to their site are coming from, what links on the site are getting the most traffic, what pages visitors are viewing, how long people stay on the site, which products on merchant sites are being sold and where people give up in multistep checkout processes, said Paul Muret, an engineering director at Google and one of the founders of Urchin.

It doesn’t end there. Read both Cuban’s post and the news article and let’s see if self-serving self-policing does the trick. I hope so.