I’ve always wondered this very question. Enjoy.
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WatchMojo NewsletterFrom a press release we issued today:
- Between June and November (a 5-month stretch), the company’s audience grew 500%
- December is on pace to grow November’s traffic figure by well over 100%
- The company’s June to December growth rate weighs in at a staggering 1,200%
- From January to December, the company’s growth rate will come in at over 2,500%.
See the press release here.
In this series I’ll be looking at online video sites and how they all stack up. In this post I’ll be looking at NBC’s new video site called DotComedy:
The Skinny: In an obvious reaction to the YouTube copyright problems plaguing traditional media companies NBC Universal has decided to tackle it head-on by creating their own site. It has everything from NBC television content like the amazing “Lazy Sunday” clip, rare clips of John Belushi and clips of classic TV shows like Weird Science to Viral clips found around the web, to Stand Up comedy content. There are also sections devoted to content DotComedy has created specifically for the web and even an upcoming user-generated clip section.
The Quality: A lot of the content here is NBC’s television content repackaged for the web(which is probably the point of the whole site) which I personally don’t really enjoy. Some of the old Sitcom stuff might be funny if you were initially a fan and remember the show, otherwise it just seems random. I doubt a 15 year old kid even knows what Weird Science is let alone Leave it to Beaver… The original content on the site is ok, they’re particularly good at writing funny songs, and I think that they might have some potential there. The Viral video component is nothing special as it takes clips from around the web, but I doubt users will head to DotComedy for user generated content.
The Quantity: The site seems pretty new and there isn’t that much content on it yet. After about 20 minutes of surfing I had glanced at (not watched) most of the content, as in looked at the thumbnail and description. I actually watched about 10 different clips.
The Layout: The look and layout is nice enough. The player is a good size and the thumbnails are nice and big. There is also the option to leave comments and links to the URL and an upcoming option to grab the code to embed a video in another site. The site is fairly easy to use and doesn’t differ too much from most other video sites. I just don’t know about that brown background…
The YouTube Factor: Am I going to choose to visit this site ahead of YouTube? No. I’d probably only visit this site again if I really needed to find a clip that I knew was from an NBC show, and then I’d have to hope that they had repackaged it for the web. Otherwise I’m still heading straight to YouTube. I also might head back to DotComedy at some point to check in on their original content.
The Verdict: I give this site a 6.5 on 10. Its ok, I’m just not that into NBC’s “old” content that it would warrant repeat visits.
The wording on numerous blogs is how the NYT surrendered to social media.
Hmm… maybe they’re just capitalizing on it now a bit more.
Last week, when rumors crept up that CNET’s James Kim had relied a bit too much on Google Maps, I made a decision not to touch that story on this blog, but make a public service announcement-type of post on EscapeMojo.com, our travel blog. The suggestion being that online resources are not always 100% reliable and that many travelers forget that; James Kim maybe being one example.
Today, I hear that the US Administration - never one to have good intelligence on foreign countries, apparently - is using Google for intelligence on Iran. Hmm… for a second I was going to post this on our WorldMojo.com blog covering politics, highlighting the irony of all of that in the wake of neo-conservatives coming out and criticizing the Bush administration on Iraq, when they were the ones who in fact provided much of the intelligence for the invasion of Iraq (that’s all we’ll touch on politics on this blog).
Regardless of where this “fits,” maybe someone should let the White House know that there is so much wrong with relying on Google for intelligence that could lead us into [another] war with no end.
Google is great folks, but quoting Valleywag here: Google is “a decent search engine, not the omnipotent being.”
Wasn’t Google sending lobbyers to Capitol Hill… maybe one of those lobbyists might want to remind the Administration of that.
NBC is planning a show around iVillage. I owned iVillage stock and was a big believer in the company. As the leader in women’s content online, it sold for $600M and helped me make a few dollars. Interestingly, the company that bought my old company - IGN - was the leader in men’s publishing, focusing on video games, movies, and lifestyle. It too sold for $650M, suggesting that the price for market leadership with either gender was about $600-650M.
Hey, numbers don’t lie.
Anyway, it was pretty obvious that NBC Universal was going to leverage iVillage as much as it could. Notice how NBC’s Jay Leno seems to strike a chord with female audiences more than male ones? Well, it’s not a coincidence then that female-oriented iVillage would become a flagship property for NBCU.
The thing that today strikes me as odd is a comment (which I underlined) from NBC’s Jeff Zucker:
The General Electric-owned media conglomerate purchased iVillage this year for about $600 million and has identified the property as an important element to its strategy for reaping profit growth from the Internet.
“This is a real interactive, online and on-the-air television program that we are not going to judge by its ratings,” NBC Universal Television Chief Executive Jeff Zucker told the Credit Suisse media and telecom conference in New York. He did not elaborate on the program’s format.
“There’s a tremendous amount of sales integration and online activity,” he said.
NBC said in October it planned to cut about 700 jobs and slash annual operating costs by $750 million to overhaul its media businesses and invest more heavily in growth businesses such as the Internet.
Jeff Zucker is one of the smartest media executives out there, but why say that? As a sign that you are “committed to the show no matter what?”
Or is it that media ratings don’t matter with online-initiated shows?
Usually when someone throws a comment like that out there, it is followed by a sharp reversal of fortunes months later. We’re not saying “pull the plug” the instant you see ratings are weak, we’re simply saying “don’t say something so filled with hubris.”
The problem there would be that TV watchers won’t like it and iVillage’s readers might be turned off.
Bear in mind one thing: success online is measured 100% by the numbers, not what a media executive, publisher feels about something. If the show is a flop with audiences, why stick to it?
One thing I’ve learned after 6 years of business development online with offline tie-in’s is that not everything is easily migrated from one media to the other. If NBCU is to really leverage and profit from iVillage, it should heed that advice.
TV is TV, Web is Web. Sure, there are a lot of cross over opportunities, but trying to shove four pounds of meat in a two pound plastic bag is never pretty…
Every few days, I get an email telling me that Company X can help us grow traffic by 100% in a day, if we just allow them to. Upon digging a bit further, I understand what they mean by this: if I sign on the dotted line, they’ll effectively trigger popup ads when someone is on another site displaying our ads.
I ask them (occasionally) if they think this is actually effective. They say “it is with Alexa, NNR or comScore.”
That’s when the conversation ends.
I always wondered why the online audience measurement services let this slide. And I guess, today, at least NNR ceased to accept it:
Nielsen/NetRatings, a leading company in measuring Internet traffic, sharply cut its previously reported statistics for the financial Web site Entrepreneur.com to 2 million unique visitors in April, from 7.6 million.
Why the change? For millions of Web surfers, Entrepreneur.com visited them — and not the other way around, the measurement company said.
As computer users visited other sites, new browser windows popped up containing articles from Entrepreneur.com, according to Scott Ross, senior product manager for Nielsen/NetRatings.
Pop-up windows appear all over the Internet, including the Web site of The New York Times. But they are typically used as advertising to pitch a product or a service.
Entrepreneur.com’s pop-ups were unusual because they contained news content, like articles on how to start a small business, making them hard to distinguish from an intentional visit to Entrepreneur.com’s site. This hailstorm of pop-ups more than tripled Entrepreneur’s reported traffic before it was detected and factored out a month later.
The technique of using pop-ups to gain readers underscores just how important sheer numbers have become in the online media business. Advertisers are shifting their marketing dollars to the Internet, but the rates they pay are low compared with traditional media.
Consequently, publishers who have struggled for years to find a way to make money online are taking aggressive steps to get their Web pages in front of as many eyes as possible.
I love to bash the panel-based online audience measurement “tools” so when they do something smart and useful, it’s only fair to return the favor and give them props.
Read more here.
