Apparently, Jeff Weiner is about to leave Yahoo!
Why? He probably does not want to remain when MSFT’s army strolls in… but that is not the point of this post.
Look at the org chart: if I am Jerry Yang, why would I want anyone between me and the guys actually running these departments?
Why? I’ve long argued that YHOO had too much fat on top. I don’t know any of these five otherwise fine gents… but if Google was kicking my teeth in, I would want to remove all of the barriers and layers to understand why.
Maybe that’s just me…
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WatchMojo NewslettereBay’s wise decision to can an ill-fated and unwise auction marketplace for advertising has been kiboshed, Ad Week reports.
Online auction house eBay has shuttered its Internet-based system for buying and selling TV and radio ads, the company has confirmed on its Web site. The system had been up and running for just over a year.
The system was controversial from the start and received little support from the cable network industry, which eBay had hoped would contribute significant amounts of inventory. But the networks by and large stayed away fearing the process would cheapen the value of their ads.
The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, a trade group representing the sales groups of most of the big cable networks, did not endorse the system and few of its members participated. Among the few networks that tested it were Oxygen and Ion.
Executives at eBay believed part of the problem was that the marketplace remained confused about how its cable ad system worked. While it was often referred to as an auction, it was actually an electronic RFP system where buyers could issue requests for packages of time specifying their precise needs. Sellers could respond and a negotiation would ensue, via the system, until a deal was concluded.
Let this serve as a lesson for the frigtards who think that ad agencies (media planners, creators and buyers) will eagerly give up their role as gatekeeper to a global $500B marketplace, off which they generate a 15% cut (so roughly $75B per annum).
In 2005 when I left my old gig as VP of Sales for an online publisher I thought of something similar… so I picked up the phone and called some of my contacts at agencies. They all said this would not work… for the reason I outlined above.
This might have worked before agencies realized how big the online media space would be, now they know how big it is, how much bigger it will be and trust me they don’t want another Google to come in between them… especially when you consider Google’s outsized market cap relative to the Big Four agencies.
Love how eBay says the failure is a result of agencies not understanding this or that. Really? Maybe it’s because they understand it too well and don’t want your auction paws anywhere near their $500B ad pie.
We partner with YouTube, MySpace Tv and Hulu - as well as 50 other distribution partners - so we have an interesting vantage point into each partner’s strength and challenges.
Despite cracking the Top 10 list of most popular video sites, some are quick to point out that while Hulu is racking up content rights, it has not yet shown the kind of traffic that the leading sites do.
Technically, that is true. But bear in mind that Hulu launched last year. More importantly, Hulu is a classic textbook example of the quality vs. quantity argument and how so many people misunderstand advertising.
When I talk to VCs, sometimes they sheepishly ask “how quickly can you generate 100M streams per month?” I remind them that most traditional media companies don’t clock in 100M streams per month. But more importantly, I stress that “UGC aggregator sites need to hit lofty figures because their inventory is crap, but if you have quality content, you can build a very profitable business with less inventory”. It’s like speaking English to a Martian, admittedly… and the Hulu criticism is awfully similar in tone.
Like MySpace TV and YouTube (and in fact, Veoh, Metacafe, Break, Daily Motion, Revver, Joost, etc.), Hulu is a free, ad-supported video site. We’ve already seen marketers totally reject user-generated content sites and social media begin to fizzle. In other words, while Hulu definitely welcomes more traffic (and their execs stay up at night looking for ways to reach more people), it is probably more concerned with securing high quality content (shameless plug, such as ours) because that is what advertisers want.
I’d argue it is most concerned with getting great content, more frequently… because frequency is almost everything online. But that is a separate point.
We love YouTube, MySpace TV and all of our partners, but while YouTube might have billions of video streams per month and nearly 75% market share, but the ratio of quality to crap is low, meaning that it cannot forecast and guarantee inventory that advertisers book. This is why YouTube adopted a “sell it your own damn self strategy”, by the way.
Remember, if an ad agency books 1M ad impressions but only gets 750K delivered (for example), it not only leaves 250K imps and the corresponding revenue, it also did not necessarily spend that money elsewhere… with Hulu, sure, they cannot promise a billion impressions (for example), but what they promise is 100% sellable.
MySpace TV and YouTube can generate billions of ad inventory, but “pound for pound”, it is harder for them to generate high-quality inventory to meet advertisers’ demand. With Hulu, sure, they generate far less inventory for advertisers now, but the inventory is 100% sellable and in-demand. I am not sure the Most Popular Videos on YouTube are all that sellable… and even the stuff that is legit is probably more of a promotional nature and not commercial. More on that here.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, I see YouTube, Hulu and MySpace TV each charting a different course anyway… and while all three will remain successful, they will face some challenges… but that won’t stop the media from misunderstanding the strategy that each player needs to undertake to remain relevant and thrive in the months and years to come as video advertising in the US alone grows from $439M in 2006 to $7.1B in 2012 (it was $750M in 2007 and is $1.25B in 2008).
From Variety via Alley Insider:
FunnyOrDie raised a $15 million second round of funding late last year at a $100 million valuation.
No comment. All right, here’s a couple.
The $100M value probably reflects the fact that Funny or Die is a TV project using the Web. What I mean is, the same way that Tom Cruise (or any A-list actor that can put butts in the seats and is known to drive movie ticket sales) would command $20M a flick… I think the only behind-the-envelope calculation done to calculate valuation was that, frankly.
Don’t get me wrong, the Landlord bit did over 50M streams, which is sure to grab investor and advertiser attention, but if the purpose of this is to actually make investors’ money back (plus dare we add: at a healthy profit) then advertisers don’t care about how many streams something did, they care about how many streams something will do… because advertisers online pay for future impressions, not historical.
In this sense, Funny or Die will have a lot of difficulty creating enough content. This is why you saw the Tom Cruise spoof earlier this year… and will see more TV actors, writers, directors and producers turn to the site to get their shits and giggles, but that’s the problem, it will be a sandbox that will remain in vogue (like Steven Spielberg’s Pop.com was, and Ashton Kushter’s latest project du jour Katalyst is) but over time will fizzle and become a write-off against Sequoia’s more profitable web investments. Anyway, sorry for the shameless plugs, but here are a couple of our latest skits (unlike some, we produce 6-10 comedy skits per month, and that is amongst the 50-100 clips we produce per month across all categories):
WatchMojo Skits: Mayo Spritzer
See more on our MySpace channel here.
“I have thought about what I will do and the conclusion I have come to is that I will get bored quite quickly with day time television. I need to do something that continues to be challenging and interesting. I don’t have any great ambition to go out and make money. But I am still a) fascinated in starting up businesses and b) starting it in a way and running in a way that I want to do it.”
Bebo co-founder Michael Birch, to Techcrunch.
I added the boldface along with a) and b) captions.
I can’t speak for other entrepreneurs but the boldfaced part captures the real, pure essence of a) entrepreneurship and b) company building.
On the money front: if I wanted to make money I would have stayed in my cushy, well-paying job.
On the a) vs. b) I think that some entrepreneurs like the starting aspect alone/more; personally I am starting to really enjoy the management and scaling as well.
PLAY
