Some reading to close out the year:
- a pretty darn interesting and insightful take on Apple’s potential tablet here.
- a complete and entertaining take on the past decade’s top 10 themes here.
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WatchMojo NewsletterHere is a 10-minute demo of Google’s new phone. Now that I have an iPhone, I know what I am getting when I am in the US…
Everywhere you look, you spot the carcass of a startup that is being left on the side of the road due to what I call the bankrupt API economy: really smart and agile entrepreneurs that seek to capitalize on another company’s mojo by seeking a shortcut to market. You can’t blame them, and by them, I mean both entrepreneur and company who manages the API.
Today, I read of Muziic:
Sixteen-year-old David Nelson is the precocious high school coder who launched a music service last March that enables users to treat YouTube music videos in much the same way that song files are handled at iTunes. The videos can be sorted and added to playlists and perhaps more importantly, a user can listen to the music without having to watch ads
Problem? Vevo also does that, but Vevo is backed by 3 of the major 4 record labels, is backed by Abu Dhabi’s investment arm… and oh yeah, they’re a joint venture with YouTube itself.
So guess what?
Vevo killed Muziic.
It’s very easy to say that Vevo’s CEO Rio Caraeff doesn’t get it, but the truth is, no one can blame companies like Vevo, YouTube or for that matter, Facebook and Twitter for tweaking with their APIs once they see what kind of products spawn off their IP. I am not saying they should be reckless with the very people that make their platforms blossom, but anyone who builds a product on another company’s API is a masochist.
Yesterday Tech Crunch ran a story on another company - Totlol - that was also using YouTube’s API.
This is a recurring theme over the years and 2010 will spell more doom over companies who pull or tweak their APIs. One reason for this is what Rupert Murdoch said: there’s just not enough advertising money to make all publishers - and this tech firms - support free applications (or content).
Ultimately though, you can’t blame entrepreneurs for trying. VCs will fund the best - ironically, YouTube itself was built on Adobe’s IP - and the strongest and most agile will survive and thrive… this is why companies will be more and more impatient with those who build something of value that becomes the envy of others.
Via MediaPost:
According to a new study released today by the Custom Publishing Council (CPC), in partnership with ContentWise, total spending on branded content was over $1.8 million per company, with 51% spent on print publications, 27% on Internet media and 22% on categories such as video or audio, which were measured for the first time this year.
Even allowing for the addition of new categories, 2009 spending was double that of 2008 and the highest amount since the CPC began conducting the survey in 2003.
Lori Rosen, Executive Director, CPC, says “… branded content has… expanded beyond its traditional roots of print publications and the Internet… (and) more importantly, 78% of respondents reported that branded content is more effective than advertising.”
Highlighted Study Results:
The survey showed that 24% expected spending to increase in 2010; 20% expect it to decrease and 56% say it will stay the same. Print publishing is expecting to decline, while other forms such as digital are expected to increase.
Learn more about the Custom Publishing Council on their site.
Google is about to go direct by launching a phone, dubbed Nexus One. I got an iPhone this week (yes, it’s true).
Fittingly, RIM’s Blackberry turns 10 and Engadget has an amazing rundown. Read it here.
Very interesting observation from Fred Davis is a senior partner at the entertainment law firm Davis Shapiro Lewit and Hayes:
1) That we are in the very early stages of this transformation. Very early not because the consumer is catching up to new technology, but the reverse. New technology is catching up to the consumer. Ever since the birth of Napster in 1999, the under-25-year-old-consumer has been leading the charge. Content owners, technology companies, and the ecosystems around them have been trying to catch up. Everyone is screaming that Spotify is “the solution” in Europe. What is Spotify focusing on? Two strategies: allowing you to base your digital library with streams (as opposed to owning MP3s) and ubiquitous access (iPhone/android apps/ISP bundles). But their distribution model is only the beginning. What is TV Everywhere but ubiquitous access to content? What is Hulu but ubiquitous access to content? There are many, many more examples.
2) That no one has truly figured out how to successfully monetize access vs. ownership. Content companies were great at monetizing ownership. Monetizing access is a very different expertise – and content owners have relatively little experience in implementing it. By studying the data about access to music and video, one has to realize the potential of monetizing access. If you add up the views of music videos on YouTube and the audio streams of music on MySpace alone, they are in the billions per year. The popularity of access is enormous. The value of access is enormous. The monetization potential is enormous. But try to remember, for a moment, how long it took the radio industry to evolve into a profitable TV industry? (Hint: a lot longer than a decade.)
As a new media content company, I agree it’s all about a) creating great content and b) making it available to consumers. Mind you, for us (a non VC-backed company), we can’t give it away and have built a nice recurring licensing revenue business, but still… interesting read, more on Paid Content. I’ve also said that in 2009 we started to migrate from a licensing business model to an ad-supported business model. What kind of ad-supported model remains to be seen.
The seismic shift continues:
This year for the first time in 23 years, Pepsi will not have ads in the Super Bowl telecast. No Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake. Instead it is redirecting the millions it has spent annually to the Internet. Pepsi has chosen to give away over $20 million in a social media play it is calling The Pepsi Refresh Project, debuting in 2010.
I wonder how many other marketers will follow Pepsi’s move? Read more.
We can shop online, meet people online and even take care of our finances online, so why are we surprised?
According to over the phone research we are seeing a spike in the amount of time that people spend online.
Survey results published by Harris Interactive suggest that adult Internet users are now spending an average of 13 hours a week online. About 14% spends 24 or more hours a week online, while 20% of adult Internet users are online for only two hours or less a week.
It looks like facebook is truly connecting people, but those people are already married…
Divorce lawyers are seeing a rise in divorces since social sites like Facebook and Bebo have tempted people to cheat!
According to their research “the most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate sexual chats with people they were not supposed to.”
Flirts messages and e-mails are now being used as evidence in court. It’s even being used as a way to let your significant other that you’re no longer interested.
“One 35-year-old woman even discovered her husband was divorcing her via Facebook.
Conference organiser Emma Brady was distraught to read that her marriage was over when he updated his status on the site to read: “Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady.”
Continue Reading HERE.
Don Dodge might have raised some eyebrows when within his first week of joining Google from MSFT suddenly developed an aversion to MSFT products in favor of Google ones, but in a recent interview, he both gives a lot of praise and dishes out diplomatic criticism of his former employer. This part stands out in general about the evolution of tech companies:
What’s your opinion on Microsoft’s future? Are they innovating as successfully as they have in the past?
I think Microsoft today is a lot like IBM was in 1985. When I started my career IBM dominated the tech world. In the late ’80s Microsoft started to dominate the software world, first with desktop software and later with server software like Windows Server and SQL Server.
Microsoft is still a powerful company – $60 billion in revenue and very profitable – but I think after 20 years they are losing the innovation edge. The most innovative companies today are Google, Apple and Facebook. Very few companies can dominate an industry for more than 20 years. It is just the natural competitive cycle. Another factor – Bill Gates leaving the company. The transition was smooth, but not having Bill there every day has far-reaching implications.
To find out which companies are best positioned online over the next decade, visit our list.
