Funny to see web entrepreneurs Loic LeMeur and Om Malik duke it out in the comments section of this entry, on Veoh’s layoffs, which was reported first by Valleywag, and confirmed to varying extent by PaidContent.
Says Seesmic founder Loic:
The first sentence “A Veoh spokesperson has denied a news report published today” with “news report” referring to Valleywag is both hilarious and sad for NewTeeVee.
Is it? Newteevee publisher (and VC!) Om Malik disagrees:
It is a report and it was making the rounds on the blogs and yes it was an incorrect news report. It doesn’t matter where it came from. chris did his job and did it well. I disagree with your read on the situation.
I see Loic’s point, don’t get me wrong. But I disagree with his assessment due to its source (yes, I think who says something has major bearing on the message). That point of view would be a fair criticism from a traditional media chieftain trying to hold on to any vestige of relevance in a new media reality… but for an uber web entrepreneur like Loic to say that?
After all, didn’t The National Enquirer break the John Edwards affair?
I’d argue that Valleywag is eons more news than National Enquirer is, but the point is: just because one does not appreciate or approve of Valleywag’s editorial style does not mean its content is not news.
Granted, it’s not news a la CNN… but it’s not The Onion, either.
For a new media entrepreneur to argue that Valleywag is not news is a bit hypocritical if you ask me… after all, didn’t Reuters build a business on republishing earnings reports?
I digress.
The main reason why I wanted to chime in on this isn’t even the bitching on the comments section, it’s that Newteevee mentions: “Veoh dumped its original video programming“.
Original programming? What original programming? I am rooting for Veoh, but as I tell my friends there, stop changing strategy and business models every other day people! The problems of having too much money. At last count, Veoh has raised nearly $70M.
The title has a double meaning, of course.
From Tech Crunch’s Michael Arrington, on GigaOm’s acquisition of a wireless blog:
I’m sticking to my argument that blogs should get cash positive and then start to acquire others - raising a slug of money just gives people an incentive to spend it, and you lose control to a group of investors who may know little or nothing about how to build a blog.
Replace blog with any content site and I agree whole-heartedly. It’s nothing against VCs, but let them stick to technology startups… they’re doing a helluva great job at that, after all.
I think Arrington at some point tried to raise VC and realized that it would be imprudent, and he’s now wiser for it. Sort of like someone I know.
Congrats to Om and his team for the acquisition though.
With the announcement that GigaOm was hiring a COO, raising more money, I think it’s safe to say that 2007 will mark both the end and new beginning of blogs… as business.
Clearly, the number of blogs in high tech alone is numbing: Rafat Ali, Michael Arrington, Om Malik have clearly been joined by others in trying to usurp market share in tech reporting.
Technically, HipMojo.com is in that lot, too, though we don’t really want to be in the business of news reporting per se, and rather, try to offer commentary, analysis from the perspective of an insider. Think think-thank, with a vantage point, if I dare say that. I clearly see the need for these businesses to delineate editorial from business, as would any media company.
Anyway, this comes on the heels of PaidContent’s expansion into the UK, and Tech Crunch hiring a COO and being on the cusp of raising money too. There’s nothing wrong with these content sites raising money of course, the opportunity is huge and they’re applying pressure to traditional news and trade media publications. It’s just clear that when magazines such Business 2.0 are about to be kyboshed and these blog empires are expanding, the line between blog network and old media is pretty much dead. You can’t really get away with trying not to play by news reporting rules when you are, in fact, reporting the news and competing with news organizations. That applies here too, I have way too much inside information by way of being an executive that I don’t really feel I should disclose ASAP. Obviously it adds to the merit of some of the posts and what not, but as we grow, too, I realize that before you press publish, you have some ethical guidelines to abide by, and just because you’re on Wordpress, MovableType etc., does not mean you are above those rules.
Hence the 2007: Blogs - RIP; Long Live Blogs moniker.
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