Barbie turns 50 tomorrow. Here are a couple of videos we did on the famous doll:
Business of Barbie
History of Barbie
Barbie’s Biography
According to a recent Business Week article/interview by Maria Bartimoro with Myspace executive Chris DeWolfe (June 2 2008 issue).
- When News Corp. bought MySpace, the #1 social networking site clocked in 22M uniques, today, it has 120M users worldwide.
- 40% of all mothers in the US are on MySpace.
- 12% of all Internet minutes are spent on MySpace.
- 45% of all MySpace users are over 35.
Those are pretty insane stats.
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.
Just a week after NBC lays off some employees at iVillage, competitor Glam Media announces a massive - and I mean massive - $84.6M funding round, of which $20M is debt financing.
What’s interesting here is that Hubert Burda Media - an international media powerhouse and publisher of more than 260 magazines titles and an investor in more than 25 high-growth digital holdings - led the equity-financing round.
Men have turned to the Web and gaming, for sure, but that is not the case for women. In fact, while magazine advertising and print advertising in general is facing a slowdown, the women’s magazine market remains fairly robust. But long term, the women advertising market and publishing segment will face many of the systematic trends facing all magazines.
Strategic investors usually invest when there is a clear cost-benefit value to them doing so, I estimate that Hubert Burda Media isn’t looking for a flip, but a potential acquisition of Glam Media down the road.
It’s also interesting to note that while US financial players have gotten nailed in the past 6 months, it’s not surprising to see a European giant lead the charge… and funding.
Obviously the press release doesn’t mention this, but Paid Content is reporting the deal was at a $500M valuation, not sure if they mean pre-money or post-money. The company is aiming for $100M in 2008 revenues.
Disclaimer: Glam Media is a distribution partner of WatchMojo.com.
A lot of people are talking about Glam Media and whether or not
- it is larger than iVillage,
- it’s an ad network or a publisher.
Frankly, it does not matter. All that matters is that from the metrics that count, Glam is growing quickly and it’s now looking at leveraging its momentum to raise a whopping $200M on a valuation of $600M. Just some food for thought: iVillage sold to NBC for $600M, this year will make $120M… Glam is making about $35M in revenues and losing $4M in EBITDA. It’s projecting a “hockey-stick-on-steroid” growth trajectory for sales next year… of course, word is they’re about to sign a $1B ad deal with Google… though that seems off since Google paid $900M for all of News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media…
Anyway, CEO Samir Arora reminds me of Simon Assaad, the sharp, slick and sales-oriented CEO of Heavy.com, another site that has raised some objections but seems to be trecking along nonetheless.
Naturally, for purposes of valuations and comparing apples with apples, yes, it matters whether or not Glam is a media property or an ad network… but frankly, the lines do blur over time.
For example, Gorilla Nation Media started as an ad rep, then added network duties, and then owned some sites, even selling Quizilla to Viacom. Glam reminds me of a young, female oriented Gorilla Nation.
Read the naysayers and supporters…
PLAY
