Since being pushed out of MySpace, Chris DeWolfe has tried to raise money to roll-up social games and compete against Zynga:
DeWolfe is likely looking at very small gaming companies run by a handful of stellar developers but that lack the legal, business development, and dealmaking resources to make any kind of a dent in the current social-gaming market.
Social games are a red hot space, with Zynga allegedly generating $100-250M in annual revenues.
If this all sounds familiar, it’s because DeWolfe’s former boss Ross Levinsohn was also planning on raising money and rolling up assets when he left Fox Interactive Media. Levinsohn, of course, joined forces with former AOL boss Jon Miller and instead merged their venture capital operations with ComVentures to become Velocity. Today Miller has left for News Corp’s Digital Chief and Levinsohn has renamed Velocity Fuse. One thing he learned wasn’t obvious was the whole roll-up strategy.
Roll-ups sound great in theory and every time I mention rolling up video assets (the industry I operate in via WatchMojo) investors get hot and heavy, but the truth is, just because sometimes creative/technical types lack the “legal, business development, and dealmaking resources to make a dent in their market” doesn’t mean roll-ups make sense from a strategic, operational, financial or tactical perspective.
You have to be able to manage a lot of personalities and egos, above all, and then once that is done (if that can be done), then you have to make the numbers add up.
Then again, don’t be surprised if Levinsohn invests in DeWolfe’s venture, who knows.
DeWolfe still has a better valuation landscape today than the one facing Levinsohn when he left FIM, but either way, DeWolfe should avoid suffering from hubris and biting off something that is easier to chew if he plans to catch lightning in a bottle twice.
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WatchMojo NewsletterWe never set out to build a brand. In fact, setting out to build a brand is a sure-fire recipe for disaster and ruin.
But approaching on our 4 year anniversary, our videos have been seen over 80,000,000 since 2006 and each month, over 15,000,000 people see our brand in retail outlets. It’s quite impressive and unbelievable, to be honest with you.
Here is the latest press release with all of the facts and figures.
With an audience of 5M online and an additional 15M offline, WatchMojo offers a cross-platform opportunity to marketers with a global reach of 20M consumers each month.
New York, NY (PRWEB) October 30, 2009 — With a cross-platform distribution strategy encompassing online, out-of-home digital networks and wireless, WatchMojo’s total reach has soared to over 20M consumers per month.
Online, the company reaches over 5M unique users across a plethora of destinations that include YouTube, Yahoo! Video, MSN, MySpace TV, Hulu, Grab Networks, KIT Digital and many other large destinations where viewers consume video content.
Offline, the company’s content format and style has proven to be perfectly suited for out-of-home digital networks and as such, its reach has soared to over 15M monthly unique users across North America. In fact:
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As the company begins to strike marketing deals with advertisers such as McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Malibu Rum and others, the company is extending its reach online and offline by leveraging its library of 5,000 short form, professional, evergreen and ad-friendly videos. It is also rolling out aggressively on mobile platforms as wireless entertainment and advertising takes off.
Online, WatchMojo served its 75,000,000th video in September 2009 and has delivered 50,000,000 streams in the past 12 months alone as more and more media companies turn to WatchMojo for professional video content.
Online video accounts for 27% of total web traffic, and in the past year alone, the number of video streams has grown 88% and swollen to over 20 billion in the US alone. During the same time period, WatchMojo’s streams grew 235%.
Once again, like a used care salesman, Microsoft says “Trust me.” When it comes to WIndows, Microsoft’s promises never end and they never get realized, either.
You have a great idea, a great product and now all you need it to get the word out there.
One of the best ways to draw attention to your company is through online advertising. Visit Bannersmall today to create multiple banner advertisements. It’s very simple! All you have to do is give Bannersmall clear directions on colours, text, style and provide any images you want to use (or ask them to source images for you) and the ads will more often than not be created within 24 hours.
The other great part of this solution is that no matter where your business is located Bannersmall is happy to help!
Find other great solutions like this one on FindSolve. The only website that offers validated solution with the click of a mouse button.
Facebook has added a new feature to encourage users to reconnect with friends that they haven’t written to in a while…the back thing is that for some users those people had actually passed away. As one user put it - “#MassiveFacebookFail.”
“In an Oct. 26 blog post, Max Kelly, Facebook’s head of security, announced the company’s policy of “memorializing” profiles of users who have died, taking them out of the public search results, sealing them from any future log-in attempts and leaving the wall open for family and friends to pay their respects”
From NY Post via Business Insider:
Ny Times CEO Arthur Sulzberger thinks that physical newspapers will stick around as well. “The best analogy I can think of is — have you ever heard of the Titanic Fallacy?” he asked. We hadn’t. “What was the critical flaw to the Titanic?” We tried to answer: Poor construction? Not enough life boats? Crashing into stuff? “A captain trying to set a world speed record through an iceberg field?” he said, shaking his head. “Even if the Titanic came in safely to New York Harbor, it was still doomed,” he said. “Twelve years earlier, two brothers invented the airplane.”
Okay, so let us get this straight. The publisher of the New York Times is saying that getting into print journalism is like getting on the Titanic?
“We are trying to convert shipping companies to airplane companies,” said Sulzberger. “Same business: transporting people safely across long distances. Different cost structure, different way of doing business, but the same core business. There is still a very vibrant business in shipping. It’s just not taking masses of people across the Atlantic. It’s now taking families around the Seychelles, or something like that. There will still be passenger ships, but they’re not going to be in the same business. So print will still be here, I believe, decades from now. But will it be the driving force? No.”
Big Champagne CEO Eric Garland:
That means that this year or next year is going to be Hollywood’s year to really start to lose audience–not just at the fringes but in regular middle-American living rooms. They’ll lose them to the other box, to the smart box.
Read more on CNET.
Could it happen? Sure, why not. Markets are looking for a catalyst and if any media company could IPO these days, NBC Universal could be it. See the interview with John Battelle here:
PLAY
