BUSINESS BLOGS
BUSINESS BLOGS
category: business
15 Apr 2009

Coverage in the local paper The Gazette, by Roberto Rocha:

As for Karbasfrooshan’s original bet on numbers – on compiling a vast video library – that also worked. When WatchMojo boasted that its videos have been streamed 50 million times, the influential technology blog TechCrunch noticed. So did other media, including The Gazette.

Indeed.  The article touches on a few points I touch on, including UGC:

When the Web was all atingle over user-generated video – those one-hit amateur productions that made YouTube what it is – Ashkan Karbasfrooshan wasn’t buying it. Sure they’re fun, but advertisers won’t go for it, he thought. What the web needs is professional-quality video.

So he started WatchMojo.com, which today has a library of 4,200 short videos spanning dozens of topics and that have been viewed 50 million times.

But while you can find most videos on the WatchMojo website, that’s not how they make their bread and butter. It’s by selling videos to websites hungry for advertising dollars but lacking good content.

“User-generated content bellyflopped,” said Karbasfrooshan, CEO of the 10-person, ultra-casual outfit in Mile End. “Sure it changed the rules of media, since now anyone can be a publisher. But in terms of marketing and advertising it doesn’t work. Big brands don’t want to be next to racy content.”

Enjoy the article here.

Next “fad” to go off the rails?  “Episodic content”.  Trust me, the notion that online viewers want to see made for web “Series” is even more ludicrous than marketers embracing UGC.  Online video content works when the shit stands on its own two feet, not when it’s tied to some ongoing train wreck.  Sure, the odd “series” works, but the idea that bankrolling a TV-like drama series on the Web is a dummy proof recipe for success is stoopid.