Are blogs “sellable” to big media companies?
Felix Salmon of Portfolio.com says yes, countering the viewpoint of BreakingViews (by the way, I agree 100% about his observations about BV. How backwards is the no-copy and paste function?).
Gawker - one of the blog networks that Salmon alludes to - begs to differ. Incidentally, we ranked Gawker high on our list of Elite Eight Tech-Oriented Blog Networks, though Gawker is about much more than tech. We think it just might be the company of 2008.
Which takes me to my point: I’m not sure, frankly, that tech blogs are a good example to judge all blogs by. The reason is that blogging software reduces the cost of publishing considerably; where this will have most value to media companies is in mass market categories such as music, travel, health and finance and not technology, especially when you consider the echo chamber nature of tech blogs.
Regardless, check out the Elite Eight Tech-Oriented Blog Networks that could be acquired.
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WatchMojo NewsletterAfter Yahoo! removed the deadline for MSFT to appoint directors, it looks like MSFT is mulling making the bid all-cash.
This begs the question: should YHOO investors cash out now and get out of the stock?
Microsoft has been a major backer of Mojo Supreme, indirectly at least.
Last year, I was on the verge of unloading my position in the best positioned stock in all of online advertising (aQuantive) when literally the next day, I woke up and realized that AQNT was up $30/share and my holdings had shot up considerably: MSFT had agreed to acquire AQNT at an 85% premium for a cool $6B, or $66.50/share. The previous day, AQNT was trading at about $36/share.
In many ways, the same can be said about YHOO: overnight YHOO was up $8/share. Of course, YHOO is actually down from both its 52-week high (which it hit in November 2007) as well as its 5-year high of $41, which it hit in January 2006.
When YHOO bombed on January 29th, 2008, I said that lawyers (of either a corporation or private equity investors) were drafting the papers for a takeover bid. Four days later, MSFT unleashed a $44.6B unsolicited offer.
Judging Jerry Yang Since the Unsolicited Bid
For the past month, Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang has ignored shareholders.
If Yang and his team would have spent as much time trying to grow their business as they have trying to escape from MSFT, maybe Yahoo! would not have found itself in the situation it’s in today.
The situation it’s in today is simple: MSFT has cornered YHOO, and while some maintain that MSFT’s offer has been reduced due to MSFT’s falling stock price, the fact remains: YHOO has to accept a $31/share offer, from a combination of stock and cash, for the deal to go through.
A month has gone by and YHOO is trying every trick in the book to try to stay one step ahead of MSFT, but in doing so, it is finding itself in a corner (for the craziest way, here’s our hail marry strategy).
Merger Arbitrage: Tracking the Spread
YHOO’s stock was trading for $18/share before MSFT’s offer. Today it crept up $0.61 to $28.67. That is $2.33 away from the purchase offer. At one point in the last month, YHOO got awfully close to the purchase offer. Paul Kedrosky is keeping tabs on the spread (merger arbitrageurs must be having a blast).
Systematic Meltdown
This, of course, is all happening against a backdrop of melting market cap and falling stock prices. The company suffering the biggest reality check is none other than Google, the company responsible for Yahoo!’s fall from grace (after Yahoo! itself of course, since Yahoo! only has itself to blame).
It should be noted that the recent selloff is not immune to Google, consider the following year-to-date performance, captured by Barron’s:
A Bad Omen: Insider Selling
What exasperates Google’s situation is the sheer volume of insider selling: $10.1B of shares have been sold by insiders, with very little buying. At a market cap of $200B last November, clearly a lot of insiders did not believe the stock had much upside… but the fact that this has been ongoing and relentless suggests something deeper.
Underwater Options Has Never Helped Recruitment, or Retention
Even worse than the share slide and the insider selling has been the departure of a key executive, Cheryl Sandberg, to become COO of Facebook. In fact, yesterday, Google shares slid as much as 4.6%, trading below a 52-week low for the first time since its IPO and removing a technical crutch that had supported the stock.
Systematic Risk: Beta
Google has always been a volatile stock. In the stock market, volatility is measured by beta. Beta is synonymous with market or systematic risk.
Beta is calculated using regression analysis, and you can think of beta as the tendency of a security’s returns to respond to swings in the market. A beta of 1 indicates that the security’s price will move with the market. A beta of less than 1 means that the security will be less volatile than the market. A beta of greater than 1 indicates that the security’s price will be more volatile than the market. For example, if a stock’s beta is 1.2, it’s theoretically 20% more volatile than the market.
Many utilities stocks have a beta of less than 1. Conversely, most high-tech Nasdaq-based stocks have a beta of greater than 1, offering the possibility of a higher rate of return, but also posing more risk.
The Benchmark Index: Nasdaq
Of course, it’s important to note what the benchmark index is: in the case of utilities or more mature companies, the index would be the NYSE or the S&P. In the case of Google, it’s Nasdaq. Nasdaq is the index for Yahoo!, too.
According to Yahoo! Finance: Google has a beta of 2 while Yahoo!’s beta is only 0.45. So since a Beta of 1 would mimic the market’s movements, then for purposes of illustration:
- Say the Nasdaq goes up by 10%, Google would go up by 20% whereas Yahoo! would only go up by 4.5%.
- However, in a downturn, if the Nasdaq falls by 10%, then Google would be down 20%… whereas Yahoo! would fall by only 4.5%.
Relying on beta alone implies that since the new year, Google would have fallen more than Yahoo! However, technical analysis suggests the opposite. Look at the following graph:
Clearly, until the MSFT offer which causes that massive spike in YHOO’s shares, YHOO was far outperforming Google. If we were to use technical analysis and continue to chart the blue line without a MSFT bid, then you can project that YHOO would have been 40-50% lower than where it was since its 52-week high of $34.
Should Yahoo! investors sell their shares or hold on?
Google is actually down 40% off its 52-week high, YHOO is down only 16%, but that is obviously thanks to the MSFT bid.
We ran some numbers under three bad - dare I say worst case - scenarios:
Explanations?
- In the first line, we use YHOO’s stock price as of its 52-week high and benchmark it stock to Google (down 40%) to see where it would be if the MSFT would be a figment of YHOO shareholder’s imagination.
- In the second line, we use YHOO’s stock price as of the date of GOOG’s 52-week high and benchmark it stock to Google (down 40%) to see where it would be if the MSFT would be a figment of YHOO shareholder’s imagination. This case assumes that Google - and not YHOO - is the real barometer because as we outlined above, we’re in a systematic meltdown and not a unique one per se.
- In the third line, we overlook beta and look at technical analysis and see where a more aggressive 50% discount would lead YHOO to. Here, YHOO would not be 40% down, but 50% down. We’re not sure this would happen as we saw than anything below $20 gets would-be buyers out…
If you run through the 3 different scenarios, the stock could be anywhere from $15-20.
I personally see $20 as the new floor (though who would have figured that $450 would be Google’s new “floor” - is it?). Regardless of Google, YHOO has been in the doldrums and clearly others saw enough value and enough of a margin of safety to step in and launch a bid… but seeing how YHOO has rejected MSFT’s bid and acted recklessly (the $1-3B severage packages?), I am not sure if shareholders - let alone would-be buyers - would buy this stock.
Bottom Line: Has the Market Changed Enough to Make a Change in MSFT’s Decision (No).
I’ve held this stock for a while… and while I maintain that this deal would get done at $50B, I wonder if the massive falloff in Google’s stock (the market bellwhether) combined with YHOO’s impending Q1 mess could mean that MSFT could technically bid lower (Yang is already blaming MSFT for distracting YHOO… wonder what the excuse was for before the bid). I doubt this last scenario would happen (the lowered bid), of course, but the point is the upside and downside could either be very modest or considerable.
If Yang had shown to be rationale and cool-headed, he could make a lot of money for shareholders. But right now, I see Yang as a very emotional and idealistic executive who is out of touch with reality.
As a shareholder, I try not to be emotional. When I have been emotional, I lost money. When I am objective, I make money. All right, so I am not sure that is always right… but it does sound like it’s true, or should be true.
So what’s the respective upside and downside?
As you can see, realistically, the stock won’t fall more to more than $20 (and I think it won’t go below $22-23) and I doubt this will go as high as $40 (though I’d love for that to happen); I see the upside being $35. So realistically, you have to decide: do you want to risk staying in the game for an additional 25% if the downside is 25%? That’s the question.
Of course, whether or not I make money on this has little to do with me, but it’s got everything to do with how Jerry Yang reacts.
There’s a time and place to be emotional, and a place and time to be rational.
As a sales executive, I used to count on emotions to seal a deal, but I always anchored my case on logic. When I left that position, I got sued by my former partners (they were real swell guys). They got their new parent to gang up on me, too.
But throughout the ordeal, despite being sometimes accused of being emotional and a hothead, I was remarkably cool. It got me through it. Had I lost my cool inside or outside the courtroom (and boardroom), I would have lost everything, including this company. But I did everything in a very methodical and calculating way.
Most importantly, while I could care less about my petty former partners, I knew I had to one day work with the new corporate parent… so I had to remain cordial and diplomatic with them. Today, our company partners with said parent.
To varying degrees, Yang seems to be showing a disregard for the people that will remain at YHOO when the inevitable takes place. Yang is actually being selfish and childish.
Of course, Yang is facing a different challenge, but the fact is: Yang has been a disaster and his mythical and legendary status in Silicon Valley means few will say that to him… and his chummy relationships with the media ensures that they don’t either. This is the biggest travesty of them all.
So Ash: will you put your money where your mouth is and sell?
Ultimately, I am leaning towards not selling my shares, yet… and if I do, it’s probably got more to do with the fact that I have progressively sold holdings in my stock portfolio to seed, fund and grow WatchMojo.com (all those videos cost money folks)…
So I guess the real question is, say (hypothetically of course) tomorrow I raised $1M, $5M or $10M for the company, would I really sell my shares?
That’s indeed a pretty good question. It’s getting late… and even I know when a post is getting way too long.
We’ll talk some more tomorrow.
Odd how a couple of stories fit together: from CNET’s Rafe Needleman
SoftTech venture capitalist Jeff Clavier is trying to convince start-up companies that their income, if it’s in the $300,000 a month range–a range that most companies made up of three guys and a credit-card funded Amazon S3 account would kill for–is “noise” that distracts them from their potential.
Some folks are outright disagreeing with the argument.
I hate raising the East Coast vs. West Coast style of investing because all VCs are fundamentally similar, but I think this is a West Coast mentality. East Coast investors certainly seem more interested in a company’s path to profitability, let alone their revenues not being noise. But reading Clavier’s comment, I could not help but think of Fake Steve Jobs’ post on Facebook hiring Cheryl Sandberg away from Google.
Not sure if I agree with all of this, mainly due to the last line… but it’s pretty funny, Fake Steve Jobs (the bold and underlined is my emphasis):
You have to remember what Facebook’s core business is about. It’s not about helping people stay in touch with friends or express themselves. It’s not about changing the world or creating an ecosystem for small apps makers. It’s not even about selling ads. Facebook is a vehicle through which a bunch of investors in the Valley hope to turn a small pile of money into a much bigger pile of money by selling shares in the public markets. That is Facebook’s core business. That is its raison d’etre as they say in Latin. This is a company created by, for and about venture capitalists. It’s not a company so much as it’s a narrative. A fable. A fairy tale.
Zuckerberg himself is pretty much incidental to the whole thing except that it makes the story a little better to have a boyish little Harvard dropout (cough Gates cough) in flip-flops and fleece jacket up on stage. (Not as CEO, mind you, because he’ll soon be giving that title to Sheryl Sandberg. Z-Boy will become Chief Innovation Visionary or Chief Strategy Architect or some other meaningless title which in English will translate into “World’s Luckiest Little Bastard.”)
Worse yet, right now Facebook is a friggin Ponzi scheme, with Facebook’s venture-funded apps partners making money primarily by selling ads to, um, Facebook’s other venture-funded apps partners. And voila, like that, everyone’s making money! Can you say shell game? Moreover, Facebook itself is being propped up and kept alive by the Borg, simply so it can serve as a thorn in Google’s side. And frankly the Borg will be happy to keep this thing alive and to help Z-Boy and his backers make obscene billions as long as Facebook saps energy from Google and distracts them and draws away their talent. Z-Boy, clever fellow that he is, is happy to serve as the Borg’s proxy in its war against Google, so long as he’s richly compensated, which he will be. He spotted a war between giants and cleverly turned that to his own advantage. Well played, kid.
Bottom line on the Sandberg hire is that what Zuckerberg and his advisers realize full well is this: IPOs usually boil down to one sentence that investment bankers can use when they call their clients. The one sentence Facebook would really like to have is this: “It’s the next Google.”
Reading the boldfaced part, especially with regards to the reference to underlined Silicon Valley (and not simply investors), maybe my point about East vs. West isn’t wrong after all.
I don’t know… I agree that focusing on revenue is a bit moot. For us for example, worrying too much about running pre-rolls to generate revenue from our millions of streams is indeed secondary to getting as much content embedded in as many high-traffic destination points online… but guess what: unless we have some revenues, we’ll die… so I don’t think either extreme works. You need some revenue, but you should probably not think about revenue alone.
Let’s face it, no self-respecting new media company gets acquired for the income component, all investors look for that capital gain payoff… and I suppose Jeff Clavier is the epitome of that… in all fairness, his track record is good enough that one cannot blame him.
Apparently, there’s a new all-time most popular video on YouTube, with 87M views. This begs the question:
What is the value of one stream?
Of course, all streams are not created equally… but if we wanted to estimate the value of the average stream, what would it be?
History Repeats Itself
Video is where search was in 2000-2001: it’s a major component of the online media landscape looking for a business model.
Indeed, a video stream is no different than a search query. While a search query conveys intent, a video stream captures interest. While performance-based marketers care about intent, branded advertisers care about interest.
Either way, in 2000, investors, analysts executives and marketers wondered: how can we fit a revenue model in that query. History holds the answer: Google borrowed GoTo.com/Overture’s pay-per-click model, refined it by buying Applied Semantics, consolidated the market by buying Sprinks and today Google has a near-monopoly on search advertising.
So while naysayers are realizing that indeed video streams will over time become monetized, this begs the question: what is a video stream worth, today?
Glad you asked. Let’s look at some data.
In December 2007:
- comScore reported that video streams surpassed search queries (well, they did not report it, we put two and two together). During that time span, there were 10.3B video streams in the US.
- we estimate monthly total video advertising in the US to be about $87.5M. The methodology is simple: online video ads in the US in 2007 were $750M and in 2008 will be $1.35B. Since December is the last month of 2007 and usually much more robust than all other months (usually, I find November to be strongest) then I think that the best way to estimate December 2007 US online ad sales is to estimate a mean for 2007 and 2008 video ad sales in the US, then divide that figure by 12.
So, what is a video stream worth today?
According to our analysis, we estimate each stream - on average - to be worth $0.0086. Stepping backwards into a CPM, you get $8.62 CPM.
Obviously, this does not mean that CPM rates for online video are $8.62. The fact is they are all over the place. Wall Street Journal might command $90 CPM. TheStreet.com might get over $50 CPM. But the problem is that the bulk of video streams do not come on those sites:
As you can see, 33% of streams come from Google sites, and since Google itself is not a video site, you can work backwards to assume that 30% of those streams come from YouTube, and about 3% come from Google Video.
As a content partner to YouTube, I will not disclose what CPM rates are on YouTube, but it’s a safe assumption that they do not match the rates that targeted sites such as TheStreet.com, CNET, or WSJ.com get… Clearly in the video space - unlike in search - the bulk of revenues is going to media companies (FOX, NBC, ABC, WSJ, CNET, etc.) and not technology companies (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL and Ask.com) who power search and own the underlying IP.
Oh, wait. Did we use the o-word. The o word is ownership… and therein a major flaw in investors strategy thus far. Investors have in 2005-2007 invested in technology platforms and ad networks that do not own any really valuable IP. Don’t get me wrong: many tech companies own the technology IP, but even in Google’s $1.65B acquisition of YouTube, the acquirer admitted to only attributing $100M or so (I’ll get the right figure and update soon) to the $1.65B price tag. YouTube’s main asset was a) its audience and b) the content.
Of course, shareholders’ equity is equal to total assets less total liabilities, so in YouTube’s case, its content was both an asset and a liability in the sense that it did not own the content or own rights to the content.
The point we are making is that if you want to win the online video battle, you have to own the IP. And since the case studies show that the technology has little value, then by deduction, where the value lies in video is not the IT, but the content.
So, what is a video stream worth in 2012?
First we need to estimate monthly streams in 4 years. A couple of figures:
- The growing reach of new distribution models will expand the total consumer base of Internet video consumers from roughly 300 million today to nearly one billion by 2012 (source) (this implies 3x growth in users).
- Overall online pay video streams for over-the-top video downloads will grow from 215 million in 2008 to over 2.4 billion in 2012, with rentals accounting for approximately half of these (source) (this implies 10x growth in paid downloads).
Since paid downloaders are far more fickle than free consumers, then it’s a fair assumption that the rise in free video consumption would be greater than 10x. However, if users consuming broadband “only” grow 3x then combining these two figures, it is fair to assume that online video streams will be 5x bigger in 4 years. So if we did 10B streams in December 2007 in the US alone, we very easily could be doing 50B video stream per month in December 2012 (if anyone has a figure here, send it to me please to ash@mojosupreme.com or leave in the comments).
To estimate what the revenue per stream would look like in December 2011, let’s estimate a monthly video advertising revenue at $7.1B / 12 months = $595M, which give the following overview:
To quote Clint Eastwood, “I know what you’re thinking”: did I cook the numbers by capping streams at 50B per month?
Well, let’s see. By December 2007 - a good 10 years after the first search engines were launched - monthly search queries in the US were at 10B… search remains the second most popular activity after email and 80% of websites are found via search… so for us to come out and say that monthly video streams would be at 50B/month is quite aggressive.
Mind you, according to my previous admittedly mind-numbing number-crunching, we’ll need 645 Billion to 1.5 Trillion each month video streams per month, provided CPM rates are $20 for pre-roll ads and users find it acceptable to run 1 ad per 3 content streams (if you doubt the $20 CPM figure and think it’s lower, we’ll actually need more video content and more streams. So be careful what you ask for). Mind you, I am not sure the pre-roll will prevail, but let’s not even go there. If you do want to go there, go here.
To be fair, at the 1.5 Trillion Streams per month, here’s what the figures look like:
Sure, in this case, a stream is worth nothing and the CPM is a paltry $0.40. But as we see today, this is an average of all streams. Those who own premium content will be fetching far greater CPMs and what in fact drives this price down is the hundreds of billions of streams that are generated by user-generated content or pirated premium content that marketers have rejected and refuse to advertise with.
Either way, guess what: the demand for content will be so ferocious that if you own content, you hold all of the chips.
Content is King
To conclude, any way you dice it, over time, the value of a stream will go up, if not in absolute terms, it will in relative terms.
After all, online audiences are rushing online faster than ever before, but the flow of marketing dollars online is faster, and the subsequent flow of online dollars towards video even faster.
Most importantly, owning that stream will be more valuable than enabling it. Why?
If I create a video, I can publish it on WatchMojo.com, syndicate it to YouTube, MySpace, Veoh, Revver, Metacafe, DailyMotion, etc. etc. etc., and generate revenue across an infinite number of distribution points. This is what Sumner Redstone was referring to when he said “content is king”: “content would become more important than distribution mechanisms. There would always exist channels of distribution”.
I could care less where it gets played and who enables it. The marginal cost of distribution is zero and the incremental unit of consumption is pure profit. This is what I meant by digital broadband content is the new software. People laughed at me then and thought I was crazy… but who’s laughing now?
However, if I am a technology enabler, I have to ensure that said stream is served on my IP. That is very costly and frankly a much riskier proposition.
This is why after many misses, investors are suddenly hopping on the video content bandwagon. It’s about freaking time.
Mania TV adds $5M to their $17M in funding, bringing the total to $22M. Ripe TV remains “king of the hill” funding-wise with $32M… followed by Heavy.com’s $25M but I am not sure if they really fall in video creators anymore…
These amounts are just a “tad” more than the money we’ve invested in WatchMojo.com, of course. I reiterate that you are better off not being funded up the wazoo until you know what your business model will look like and it actually pans out. I’m not alone in thinking that, take it from a pro like Fred Wilson: the following is the most accurate thing I’ve ever read about why VC-backed firms fail (our commentary here and here).
Last year I predicted that VCs would finally get it right and start to fund content companies. Howard Lindzon rightfully (at the time) said I was wrong. I think my timing was off. It did not really happen in 2007 but it is certainly happening in 2008.
Mind you, some VCs have been funding content creators for some time now which is why some companies are behind the proverbial the 8-ball, playing catch-up and trying to align their business realities with the prospects and theory that led their initial funding rounds.
Regardless, you are seeing an acceleration of all of this in 2008, though it’s not always VCs alone; as talent agencies (ICM, CAA, WMA) and media heavyweights (Jon Miller, Ross Levinsohn, Terry Semel, etc.) and strategic investors (AT&T, etc.) are all getting in the act.
In fact, Mania TV was one of the first video content producers out there. They emailed me at my old gig looking for a biz dev opportunity and I was intrigued with the idea of producing video for the Web. This was in 2005: broadband users weren’t as prevalent as they are now, hosting costs were much higher. Most importantly, hyper-distribution was in its infancy. What is hyper-syndication:
- The Democratization of Content and the Commoditization of Distribution
- The Commoditization of Distribution and Scalability of Content
Ultimately, I’d love nothing more than seeing Ripe, Heavy and Mania TV have monster exits, but at those funding levels already - and with video advertising still in an embryonic stage (to grow from $1B in 2008 to $7.1B in next four years) - I fear that some of these companies will have a hard time finding buyers right now… especialy in the context of 2008 being the year of micro deals with new media firms.
Obviously that’s where the additional funding comes in: to take them to an exit. Invariably, some of these companies funds (be it from financing or operations) will also be spent on acquisitions: the IGN method of consolidating a space and then exiting at a much higher range (in IGN’s case, $650M to News Corp.).
Interestingly, Mania TV was one of the original sources of inspiration for WatchMojo.com in the context of made-for-web video programming (sans Dave Navarro et al., of course). In all honesty, last year I lost faith in them when they jumped on the UGC bandwa-bong but thankfully, they came to their senses and went back to their roots with original programming.
Anyway, combined with Generate’s $6M round, we’re updating our video funding table, below:
When former AOL CEO Jon Miller hooked up with former FOX Interactive Media CEO Ross Levinsohn, rumor had it that they would partner with a private equity firm, spend billions and roll-up media companies.
Frankly, in their hands, I’m not sure that would have been a bad idea, but with billions of dollars invested, the kind of return investors would have expected in absolute dollar amounts would have left very little room for errors. So the two men went back to the drawing board, shuffled their cards and came out with a slightly different strategy: the two would partner with a VC, invest smaller sums and set up a fund with holdings in independent companies.
It’s only been a couple of months, but giving credit where it’s due, they are on their way to build a Western-based, new media-centric, loosely based and informal keiretsu, so to speak.
According to Venture Beat:
Although there’s no formal agreements between Velocity’s portfolio companies, here’s how they are positioned to work together. First, Generate [a company Velocity just invested in] creates the content and cuts deals with advertisers.
Then, Broadband Enterprises [whom Velocity invested $10M in last month], a company that distributes videos and video advertising to many other partners, helps Generate to distribute its content across the web, mobile devices and TV networks. Meanwhile, widget company Mixercast offers a way for Generate to get its content to spread virally among social network users, as they add and share widgets that feature its artists’ works.
Broadband Enterprises, for example, competes with Tremor Media (and many others). Most of the tech platforms and ad networks actually do not “lock clients” in. I think (though I am biased) the only way you win is if you own the content. By leveraging content as the glue that holds the various pieces of their growing empire together, Velocity can add a lot of velocity to their strategy if they keep adding content and funnel it through the pipes (in this analogy, the pipes being Mixercast, Broadband, etc.)
I love to criticize financiers’ hubris; lord knows sometimes smart people stumble because they try to shove 5 pounds of meat in a 2-pound bag… but this approach is actually starting to look pretty smart. Online video’s storyline is being written as we speak and the kind of connections and vision they are bringing to the landscape is refreshing and unique.
Most VCs have hitherto focused on tech platforms and ad networks, Velocity seems to be bullish on video content, as their investment in Generate manifests. Mind you, if the former CEO of WB was working on a project, I am sure most archetypical VCs would listen, too.
I was not familiar with Generate, frankly, but they seem to share our bullishness for professional, high quality video content, via our own efforts on WatchMojo.com.
It is certainly too early to judge Miller and Levinsohn’s track record as investors, but as outsiders to the financing game with extensive media backgrounds, they seem to have the inside lane in a lot of interesting players in the video segment.
It will be interesting to see what some of their next moves will be. If you take a step back and envision the “keiretsu” that they are building, I can imagine a few missing elements that they will be looking at filling - or reinforcing - in order to add velocity and momentum in the months to come…
Another storyline, of course, is that both Miller and Levinsohn are determined to prove something, if to no one else but themselves. While either man could have accepted a CEO job at countless companies, it’s interesting that they’ve adopted a portfolio approach to diversify their risk away from any one company.
If they pull off their game plan, they could make the existing highlights of their resumes look pretty pale compared to what they have in store as online video continues to become a bigger and bigger piece of the online advertising landscape.
