I always tell people that I want WatchMojo.com to become the Dear Abby of web video, in the sense that our content can be syndicated all over the place on the web, in wireless devices and in out of home digital networks. Because web video is digital media, you can really scale its reach quite a bit… it’s just a matter of how fast the advertising model will develop.
Anyway, Merv Griffin passed away, and Mediapost has a good piece on syndication and how he mastered the art of it.
Today MSFT relaunched as an advertising company, basically… and as much as I loved the aQuantive buy, I wonder if many of the companies out there are going about it the right way.
Bear in mind, Google opened investors and entrepreneurs eyes to how valuable a web advertising network can be valuable… of course, they did that when no one was investing in Web advertising infrastructure and benefitted from Yahoo!’s decision to power their search with Google.
The odds of either one of those two scenarios to repeat in web video ad networks is pretty nil. Ultimately, there will be a further commoditization of web video platforms and networks, if I am unhappy with video player A, I can easily pull off my feed from player A for player B. If ad network X is not delivering, I can swap them out for network Y.
Why? Because we’ve learned from text content and how Google became the Web’s billboard to become a $10B business in less than 10 years.
If you consider that last statement, Google’s Ad Sense + Text Content = a $10B market. Over the next 1, 3, 5 years, let me ask you, what do you think will be the constraint: the equivalent of Google Ad Sense or Quality Video Content?
Social networking’s UGC, despite all of the hype, is pegged to be a $2.15B market, and that includes text, images and video. Video, conversely, can be anywhere from $4.3B to $10B. We’ve already explained why TV networks won’t be aggressively publishing online and we know UGC gives marketers qualms… so the missing component in the equation we outlined above is content, content, content.
Somewhat fitting that the OPA came out today and said people spend half the time they spend online consuming content.
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WatchMojo NewsletterA lot of people are talking about Glam Media and whether or not
- it is larger than iVillage,
- it’s an ad network or a publisher.
Frankly, it does not matter. All that matters is that from the metrics that count, Glam is growing quickly and it’s now looking at leveraging its momentum to raise a whopping $200M on a valuation of $600M. Just some food for thought: iVillage sold to NBC for $600M, this year will make $120M… Glam is making about $35M in revenues and losing $4M in EBITDA. It’s projecting a “hockey-stick-on-steroid” growth trajectory for sales next year… of course, word is they’re about to sign a $1B ad deal with Google… though that seems off since Google paid $900M for all of News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media…
Anyway, CEO Samir Arora reminds me of Simon Assaad, the sharp, slick and sales-oriented CEO of Heavy.com, another site that has raised some objections but seems to be trecking along nonetheless.
Naturally, for purposes of valuations and comparing apples with apples, yes, it matters whether or not Glam is a media property or an ad network… but frankly, the lines do blur over time.
For example, Gorilla Nation Media started as an ad rep, then added network duties, and then owned some sites, even selling Quizilla to Viacom. Glam reminds me of a young, female oriented Gorilla Nation.
Read the naysayers and supporters…
Interesting stat from the Online Publishers Association (that’s right, the OPA). Clearly this is a self-serving and biased piece of data, if it’s true, however, it does explain a few things.
What’s the finding:
According to the OPA’s IAI, conducted by Nielsen//NetRatings, communications accounted for 46% of consumers’ time online in 2003. A dramatic shift has taken place since then, with consumers now spending 47% of their time with content, compared with 34% four years ago. The 37% gain in share for content is followed closely by a 35% gain in share for search. However the total time being spent with search remains relatively low, accounting for just 5% of Internet users online time in 2007*.
“The IAI has identified a very significant and sustained trend in where consumers are spending their online time,” Horan said. “The index indicates that, over the last four years, the primary role of the Internet has shifted from communications to content.”
At a time when comScore and Nielsen are considering scrapping the pageview and replacing it with average time spent on a site, this finding is a shot in the arm of publishers…
Nowadays, according to some, publisher’s content plays second fiddle to user generated content, even though clearly advertisers don’t want anything to do with it. In fact, by 2010, UGC will account for $2.15B in ads, even though total online ads will be anywhere from $30B to $60B market.
Read more.
When the time comes to find a perfect large company to sell to, sometimes you think that a large media company is the best path to take: large audience, management strength, advertiser relations.
I’m sure iVillage thought that when it cashed out for $600M last year in a sale to NBC Universal.
Apparently, the road has been anything but smooth. As always, Henry Blodget offers a good roundup here.
Somewhat fitting that Paid Content also talks about big media integration woes: in 2005 iFilm sold to Viacom for $49m… it then decided to build Spike TV… somehow these two entities have meshed into iSpikeFilm, or something like that.
Point is: as a startup or established new media company, you should be careful how and who you choose to partner up with.
