Google.com is kicking Yahoo!, MSN.com, Ask.com and AOL.com in the teeth. Those four horsewomen could buy up every search engine out there and add 1% to their market share. Heck, they can combine forces and have 39% to Google’s 61%, and judging by the latest stats, over the next months and quarters, that ratio will probably skew favorably towards Google.
While everyone still raves about search - and justifiably so with 40% of all online advertising revenues - the future of new media remains video… and there, Google Corp. (or is Google Inc.?) other asset YouTube (and WatchMojo.com distribution partner) commands an even bigger grip of eyeballs in its segment?
Sure, revenue-wise YouTube isn’t looking as hot as Fox Interactive Media, ABC or NBC… but the fact remains, over time, YouTube will generate meaningful revenues.
With global advertising being a $500B market and online advertising currently not even a $100B… is Google the most dominant company in any industry, ever?
Worth asking. Also worth asking:
Will Google be worth more than MSFT come 2010?
Time will tell.
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WatchMojo NewsletterIs it really a service if people don’t ask for it?
“RedLasso believes we are providing a valuable service to the content producers and the bloggers,” Hayward said.
As a content producer, I am all for explosive distribution and seamless syndication, but I am sick and tired of technologists - and their financier backers - thinking they are doing us a favor by snatching our content and building a business around it.
And that is coming from me, a new media guy who is trying to disrupt traditional media’s economics and business. Mind you, the tables turn on us, as well.
Moreover, if I was Red Lasso, I would not be using the “bloggers love us” argument. That is plain dumb.
I’m a blogger too and yes, it pisses me off that some of the clips I embed - like this one of Manchester United defeating Chelsea on our sports blog - go missing. But the fact is: I don’t see why YouTube or Red Lasso has the privilege of building a business around content that does not belong to them or they don’t have the right to.
And that is coming from me, the executive producer of one of the biggest content producers on YouTube.
All in all, I think this is a case of bad judgment and bad advice. In fact, it’s bad taste. Forget what the PR spinsters are saying: these guys were hoping to get big and maybe even bought before the biggies noticed.
After YouTube, I doubt the media companies would fall for it again.
Content’s value is rising, and thanks to YouTube’s massive success, the end result for companies like Red Lasso is more Napster, and less YouTube.
Ultimately, media owners themselves will be just fine, look at ABC that today announced enabling embeds. Why should Red Lasso be allowed to tell ABC when it can and cannot enable that?
For the record I am not anti-Red Lasso or a Luddite, but call me old-fashioned: if Red Lasso wants our content, they should go through us, not around us.
One of the main objections WatchMojo.com’s strategy used to it the fact that we create content across many categories (auto, health, travel, video games, etc.). It’s was a fair criticism; but it’s proven to be moot.
I don’t need to take 1,000 words to explain why. The marketplace has validated that strategy.
In the same vein, when I launched the site, I was careful not to dive into too much content for either men or women. So we now produce content catering both genders.
As such, it’s worth looking at the existing differences between video consumption between men and women.
Right now, all factors being equal, women watch less video than men. From BizReport:
Women, it seems, use the internet to get things done, not for entertainment, and are less likely to visit video sites, such as YouTube. This may explain the disparity between the numbers of women viewing video – just 66 percent of women will watch online video this year, says the report, compared with 78 percent of men.
Let’s back up and ask why that is? My feeling is that the type of video content that is out there right now is not what women like. Men are more likely to consume the low quality, low-brow user-generated content that is largely out there.
Looks like we have confirmation of that gut feeling. From Promo Magazine:
But 27% of males in that range viewed clips on a consumer-generated media (CGM) Web site such as YouTube, MySpace Video, Veoh or Break.com during the month; Only 12% of women in the demographic reported doing the same.
If, however, women were offered quality programming, then my gut says that they will watch it and given that there are more women than men online, my gut also says that over time women will consume more video content, too. Looks like this is the mid-term trend:
The indications are that young women will help drive an upward trend of female video viewers. Williamson predicts that by 2011 nearly 85 percent of women online will watch video, almost matching the male audience which is predicted to reach 88 percent.
What makes this interesting, in fact, is that who reads print media? Women.
Yet studies show that women are not consuming as much video. So what do print media companies do? They are not as aggressive with online video as they should be… this might prove a fatal mistake.
Time will tell.
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