A few years ago, we published a list of companies who ruled the Internet each year, from 1994-2007. Then, we forgot to update it for 2008-2010. On this week’s HipMojo show, we run down the list and picked a company for 2008, 2009, and 2010… and then open it up for you to suggest companies for 2011. Vote for the company of the Year below in the Comments, feel free to vote for the company you work for, but explain WHY, what was the one thing or many things that made the company stand out from the noise? continue reading...
Back in 2007 I wrote that CDNs were become commoditized, and it was a matter of time before the OVP (online video platforms) became commoditized, too. continue reading...
Our friends at Blip.tv raised some money from Bain Capital. In case the name sounds familiar, that is the company that Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney ran for years. This is the second institutional round for Blip.tv, who Tech Crunch notes is keeping its cards to its chest. Smart move. A lot of companies spend more time issuing press releases touting how much capital they’ve raised, all the while neglecting their clients and partners. From our experience working with Blip.tv (disclosure: we integrated their player in our CMS when we relaunched the site in August 2007), they are the polar opposite of that.
In the summer of 2007, we had to make a call between: continue reading...
When Brightcove raised $80M, I presume they did so by stressing how much each one of their units would be worth down the road:
- The consumer site would take on YouTube, which commanded a $1.65B exit. continue reading...
Paid Content refers to a NYT article on CBS which calls for the company that Bill Paley built to make digital acquisitions, which begs the question: should they go for a big purchase or make small moves?
Of course, answering that question alone without addressing the backdrop to that question yields an incomplete picture. continue reading...
On Tuesday, Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang mentioned that Yahoo! would be looking to invest in 2008. He did not name names.
Today Tech Crunch published a rumor that Yahoo! was going to be buying a video platform for $150M. Initially the rumor suggested it would be Brightcove, who’s raised about $80M in venture money, meaning a $150M buyout would not be sufficient to please investors. Then, some thought it might be Metacafe, previously rumored to be acquired by Yahoo! continue reading...
I won’t make any friends in high places… but I probably won’t lose many either… so here goes:
Brightcove made more and more promises to investors to raise more money (we’re a CMS platform, a YouTube like destination and an ad network), then it scaled back its consumer destination strategy (wisely) and gave up its dream to be an ad network (wisely). So now it’s a video serving platform, only. It’s good to focus, but it sure will be hard to make that $80M in funding generate a positive IRR… but who’s keeping track of that when it’s other people’s money, right? continue reading...
Apparently, traditional media’s love and hate relationship with YouTube took an interesting turn tonight: NBC canceled its channel on YouTube.
I won’t comment on that directly since WatchMojo.com is a content provider on YouTube and enough people are already commenting on the unconfirmed news, but I’ve been meaning to look at the interesting dynamic between traditional media companies and web video startups, and this is one more chess move in the big game that’s really only starting. continue reading...
Last year, Brightcove worked hard at trying to be both a platform and a destination. The former to large media sites that needed a robust video platform, the latter to compete for ad dollars against sites like YouTube et al.
Today, they throw in the towel on the latter, according to AdWeek, via Paid Content. Technically, they don’t shut down the site altogether, “It’s something that runs itself,” Adam Berry, VP of marketing and strategy, told Adweek. continue reading...
Ages ago, well, in Web time, I spoke to the CEO of Grid Networks who was telling me about some of the feedback he was getting from media companies, particularly TV companies. The gist was that until 1 Million viewers could in tandem watch a movie online at once without it affecting the user experience, the Web was not really going to matter to them as much as the “smart crowd” thought it should.
It was clear that he - both the CDN CEO and the media executive - was right. But today I got an example of that, biggatime. continue reading...
