Somehow*, I came across Paul Lee’s post on high valuations, he’s a founding member and Senior Vice President at the Peacock Equity Fund, a joint venture between NBC Universal and GE Capital:

A high valuation is problematic for a number of reasons. The first, and probably most important, is the impact on the company’s ability to attract quality talent. That’s not to say that you couldn’t (I’m sure the aforementioned microblogging site is seeing a flood of resumes). However, most people in the startup world join startups for the equity upside in a liquidity event or IPO (although the garage sale furniture and stale pizza at 1 a.m. is tremendously appealing). When a highly priced round is completed, guess what–the strike price of the options also go up. In effect, the hurdle for the options to be “in the money” has gone up and the value of the options has decreased. The motivation for the employees coming in after the financing has been materially altered. continue reading...

US Video advertising will surpass $1B in billings in 2008.  That is a psychological mark more than anything else as video advertising overtakes search advertising in the upcoming decade.  It might sound impossible now, but the day Web ads overtake TV ads, it won’t be on the strength of search ads, but rather, the titanic shift of marketing dollars from TV to the internet.

Over the past few years, marketers have began to experiment with video advertising, or rather, advertising around video content.  A lot of that has been via pre-rolls, but pre-rolls - while they will remain an important component in years to come - are no different than popunders and popups.  Over time, we’ll need something better and less intrusive for users to render the format effective.  I suggested maybe the PiP will make a dent, who knows? continue reading...

Robert Scoble, Microsoft and VC-backed Podtech.net’s former content guy, is set to join Fast Company and help build FastCompany.tv.

As a video content producer at WatchMojo.com, I am always interested and encouraged when more professionals get into the art of storytelling online. If online video advertising is to grow (and overtake search advertising in billings, then we need to change marketers’ perception that online video is only UGC). continue reading...