The Misplaced Bet on UGC
Back in 2006, we’d get the occasional call from someone pitching us a turnkey solution to add User-Generated Content (UGC) videos to our WatchMojo.com property, which houses professionally produced videos we have created. continue reading...
Daily Motion is escalating the battle for #3 in their space (after YouTube and MySpace TV).
Online video advertising is growing, quickly. continue reading...
Nick Carr published a piece titled The internet rewards the lazy and punishes the intrepid. Given Carr’s usual rants, I thought the title was figurative, but it was in fact literal: he’s talking about navigation systems and what not.
But the title led me to think: what ever happened to long term business planning? Are companies ever built to last or are they built to flip? My vantage point is skewed because I work on the Web, where 1 year is an eternity for some and the notion of creating, building and holding a business for 10 years is nearly impossible (”it will be shut down or sold”). continue reading...
When Guba’s CEO resigned, he said that YouTube had won the game in online video… we said that the times would get harder for second tier sites because Google would not be able to make YouTube even stronger. VC activity in the space slowed down, as exits became less obvious. Today we’re seeing the fragmentation of online video file sharing services: Veoh is moving into one area and Sony becomes the latest to carve a niche:
Sony is trying to edge into Internet videos with a Web site to be introduced today called Crackle that will feature short segments by aspiring filmmakers, many of whom Sony paid for their productions. continue reading...
I hate to say I told you so, so I won’t.
But I will say this, when we wrote that times would not be as lavish for video file sharing sites in the wake of the Youtube/Google deal, we turned out to be right. continue reading...
