Before pouring everything I had into WatchMojo.com (original video content), we launched a domain specific vertical search engine called MetaMojo.com, which returned best of breed results (health retrieved search results from Mayo Clinic, WebMD, Health.com, etc.)
People asked if I was crazy trying to compete with Google. I wasn’t. I felt it was (and still is) a complimentary tool that would focus on best of breed category sources that would be harder to find as splogs and UGC proliferated online.
I knew, however, that for this to become successful, I’d need
- R&D over top of what I could personally invest in it,
-Distribution, ideally from companies that did not want Google to have too much power.
The problem was that
- most VCs had (in 2005) no desire to finance a Google killer because Google killers like Cuill and PoweRset got killed (well, technically PRSet sold big, but it raised so much money and its product was so lackluster that I doubt it should fall in the success category by VC-funded definitions).
- most media companies had no desire to fund technology or search applications,
- gaining distribution was quasi impossible because those with audiences were happy getting free search technology and checks from El Grande G.
The point I am making is that these big media companies have probably gotten overtures over the years from numerous entrepreneurs like myself but have given them the cold shoulder.
Had they taken 1% of 1% of their massive revenue streams and opened up their sites to alternative technologies, and even, dare I say it, built a Cartel-like strategy of going with a new search player that only focused on quality sources, maybe things would have proven different… but they did not.
Here’s the thing: while it’s true that the best time to start a company or venture is in a downturn, it’s also true that you cannot get fast, stupid, lazy and complacent in boom times.
So when Big Media complains about not popping up on the first page of Google results and instead seeing me-too blogs rank ahead, they actually have no one to blame but themselves.
I actually feel their pain: having stopped focusing on MetaMojo.com and scaled WatchMojo.com into one (if not the) biggest producers of original video content, I am sometimes dumbfounded to see sites we licence/distribute to (YouTube et al., basically) rank ahead of our own site on Google results page, but then you have to find a way to profit from that, which is something I guess Big Media has yet to crack the code on.
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