Maxim had the brand, clients, and global reach to become a premier media company of the 21st century. Unfortunately, it put its head in the sand, went into denial mode, and proved to be more enamored with being a print media company than simply a media company.
Today’s news (which I’ve known for some time but couldn’t blog about) was no news. Cerberus basically shoves Quadrangle off the Titanic…
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WatchMojo NewsletterBack in Fall of 2007, I published something called Top 10 Best Web M&As of All Time. The YouTube acquisition had just closed, so I said we’ll reserve judgment. At the time, we put News Corp.’s acquisition of MySpace at #1 for the simple reason that Google’s $900M search deal made it a slam dunk for #1. On that note, today, you can argue that MySpace is less sexy than it was then… but who cares, it’s still a very accretive deal for News Corp.
Today we hear mumblings that YouTube isn’t just generating $500M in revenues but will soon be profitable.
Over the years, WatchMojo.com has partnered with YouTube and we’ve learned a lot from them and given them earfulls frequently. I have argued that YouTube will be successful despite Google because Google is a tech company and YouTube needs more media and content savvy to become as successful as it possibly can.
But despite the criticism, it has always been clear despite what some analysts said, that YouTube was generating more revenue than some suspected and cost less than others feared.
But, the facts remain:
- YouTube is now the # 2 search destination after Google
- Market share-wise, YouTube is more dominating in video than Google is in search (or just as dominating).
- Online video will capture enough of the brand dollars in advertising that, when combined with YouTube’s dominance in video, will give Google a massive share of the ad dollars.
- All of Youtube’s original competitors (DailyMotion, Veoh, Revver, Metacafe, etc.) will have to totally change business models, you’ve seen it already with Veoh, and Revver has basically died and come back under a new leadership.
- YouTube’s new competitor, Hulu, is owned by media companies who will keep its success on a tight leash, because even if online ad revenues turn into quarters, they will still be smaller than the dollars from offline.
All in all you be the judge, looking at the list of “top acquisitions” it is pretty sure than YouTube will be one, if not the, best M&A deal online. Oh, one more thing, Google didn’t even pay cash, they used their $600-700 stock!
Viacom - still mired in a $1B lawsuit against Google/YouTube - believes it has cracked the online video ad code:
Want to make Web video watchers and Web video advertisers happy? Do it with a short ad at the beginning of the clip, and then another ad that pops up while the clip is running.
So says Viacom’s MTV, which reached that conclusion after testing various ad units in more than 50 million video clips it ran across its various sites. Viacom (VIA) says the intro-and-overlay package works best for advertisers’ “brand lift,” which it defines via metrics like unaided awareness, aided awareness and purchase intent.
Read more. I’ve always liked the idea of a short 5-second ad at the beginning… I can’t imagine the 30-second pre-roll disappearing but if you do the combo of a shorter ad at the beginning and then the longer ad in the middle, that does seem like a better combination. The problem is most of Viacom’s content is suitable for that 5-30 kind of format (5 second upfront, then 30 in the middle), whereas YouTube’s content… less so.
Disclaimer: YouTube is a distribution partner of ours.
