After publishing 5,000 informative and entertaining videos, we launch our new initiative: WatchMojo Live, straight from Manhattan. Expect a wide array of newsmakers and celebrities in the weeks to come, today, it’s business, new media and technology, with Tech Crunch co-editor Erick Schonfeld.
I’ve done hundreds of taped segments for WatchMojo.com since 2006, but I haven’t done a live show since 2005 when I stopped doing radio to focus on launching WatchMojo.com. Expect some rust…
Yesterday Tech Crunch’s Sarah Lacy wrote a post asking if the UGC fad was dead. Today they follow that up with a piece on our company, WatchMojo.com, and the news that we crossed 50,000,000 all-time cumulative streams.
Here’s a snapshot of the stream count, for those who like visuals:
and here is the press release that, well, I guess, now has to go out tomorrow:
Content is King: WatchMojo.com Strikes Gold, Crosses 50 Million Video Stream Mark
WatchMojo.com served its 50,000,000th video stream in March 2009. Unlike most video companies that host user-appropriated content from other media companies or aggregate third-party professional content, WatchMojo.com produces professional videos and distributes it to social networking and media sites.
The slowing economy has accelerated the company’s growth as consumers turn to home entertainment. “A few years ago, we had to explain why we produced professional videos. Today, there’s an enormous appetite for it as user-generated content fails to win over advertisers despite soaring demand for video content” confesses CEO Ashkan Karbasfrooshan.
As a result, WatchMojo.com has become a leading supplier of premium content to Hulu, MySpace, TV.com, Yahoo!, YouTube as well as newspaper companies that are looking for ways to adapt to new media.
Best described as the video version of a cross between About.com, Wikipedia.org and your favorite consumer magazine, the company’s 5,000 videos are evergreen and cover Autos, Business, Education, Fashion, Film, Food, Green Living, Health, How To, Lifestyle, Music, Politics, Science, Sports, Technology, Travel and Video Games. Largely in English, its library includes multi-lingual and closed captioned videos as well. By publishing hundreds of new videos each month on its http://www.WatchMojo.com property, the company’s offering keeps scaling while companies are slashing budgets.
Launched in 2006, WatchMojo.com took 26 months to reach 25,000,000 video streams, but then crossed 50,000,000 a mere 11 months later.
In 2008:
- The company generated 28,000,000 streams, up from 13,000,000 in 2007, for an increase of 115%,
- Revenues grew by 50%, while costs only grew by 5%.
Each month, WatchMojo.com’s videos:
- are seen 4,000,000 times on the web,
- reach 15,000,000 consumers in the out-of-home digital signage market across 2,000 locations in North America.
In addition to ad sales on its property, WatchMojo.com generates revenues through a mix of recurring licensing deals, advertising-based syndication partnerships and stock videography sales to a wide array of clients and partners in the web, out-of-home, television and mobile markets.
In the process, the company has built a ubiquitous distribution model where it generates revenue across millions of touch points as ad dollars continue to flow towards interactive media.
With its ability to create branded content, package advertisements in and around the video programming and distribute these on the most visited websites in the world, WatchMojo.com is now setting its sights on Madison Avenue in order to better serve ad agencies who continue to shift their clients’ marketing dollars from television and print and are looking for innovative, effective opportunities online. In 2008, total online advertising grew to $23 billion while total online video advertising grew to $1.64 billion.
I was getting ready to hop on a call… and the Tech Crunch caught me off guard… so I will add more facts and figures in a later post. All to say, very proud about the milestone and our first Tech Crunch coverage!
Tech Crunch gets props for shunning the “pay for play” model, and even more props for live streaming everything… but it’s a bit of a farce that Yammer won, not because it’s not a cool product and potentially useful application, but because it’s a clone of an existing product with no business model, targeting a smaller population, and hawking something resembling a business model, but not quite.
Just saying.
When Google released its Q4 2007 earnings, it suggested that the Fox Interactive Media / MySpace $900M deal wasn’t working out too well for Google. Some have mentioned that this deal would hang like an albatross around Google’s stock for years to come.
News Corp. then mentioned - during its own earnings call - that Google was not able to get out of the deal, knew that the deal would only become profitable in the tail end of the deal; basically told tough luck, by News Corp. COO Peter Chernin.
Today Tech Crunch is reporting from the ever-popular and reliable “anonymous sources” that FIM is doing a rethink on Google and thinking of MSFT, who also powers Facebook’s ads, MySpace’s arch enemy.
I do not doubt Michael Arrington’s sources, the man has been right ahead of the news on random things like Google buying YouTube or eBay acquiring Stumble Upon as well as many things… but as an executive and dealmaker, I find it very odd for FIM to actually consider this. Here’s why:
- This deal does not allow Google to get out, if I were a FIM dealmaker, I would not even bring that up as a possibility. Why? It gives Google a false sense of hope and distracts any potential tweaks to the deal.
- MSFT runs ads on Facebook, no one, especially a shrewd CEO like Rupert Murdoch, would want one company (especially MSFT) to have all that data on both MySpace and Facebook, the world’s #1 and #2 social networks. Google created a $200B company (now sitting at $165B) based on access to all of that data. Yes, a database of intentions is worth more than a database of connections, but the point is, data = value and MySpace would be foolish to let this happen.
- MSFT can outspend Google, yes, but I doubt they really want MySpace. So I think an opportunistic executive from MSFT contacted MySpace and FIM to inquire about the opportunity to knock out Google… but ultimately, I think News Corp. balked for these reasons.
Why? Much the same reason that Google knocked out Yahoo!/Overture in 2006 for the MySpace inventory, there is nothing stopping MySpace to collect every single penny of that $900M and then strike a bigger deal with MSFT… MSFT’s thirst and hunger for online advertising and search exposure is not going away… so there is no big rush.
Furthermore, while Murdoch does not come out and say it, he welcomes weakening Google.
Tech Crunch says Sergey Brin’s knock at MySpace’s inventory “angered News Corp./FIM execs” so this is why they are re-thinking the Google deal. BS. If that is the case, then they will definitely ensure that Google stays in this deal.
That’s right: unlike Sumner Redstone who sued Google and attacked them head-on, Murdoch likes to keep his enemies close to him… and making sure that Google pays him $900M for 2 years ensures that Google cannot necessarily invest in other areas, or other sites, like Facebook, his MySpace unit’s main enemy.
Ultimately… MySpace is better off keeping the status quo, all the while investing in its own ad network and then getting MSFT to replace Google and coexist along its own ad network in a few years.
Of course, this all begs the questions: why would anyone leak this to Michael Arrington and Tech Crunch? Well, Microsoft is targeting Yahoo! in an unsolicited $44.6B takeover bid… one of the white knight candidates has been Rupert Murdoch’s FIM. I think this is a case of MSFT gladly reminding Silicon Valley (Google and Yahoo!) that it has the firepower and
- ability to knock off Google in any deal if it wants to and
- block any option YHOO thinks it has to fend off Redmond.
If you thoughts soap operas were more interesting, think again.
Disclaimer: News Corp. was my former employer from Sept. to Dec. 2005 and MySpace TV is one of WatchMojo.com’s distribution partners.
Yesterday, BubbleGeneration’s Umair Haque set off a storm by suggesting that tech blog networks are peaking. I agree that the signal-to-noise ratio in the technology blog network space has gone down considerably. While many of these blogs are hiring from traditional media, established publications are firing back with their own blogs and blog networks. CNET for one has been very aggressive, even appointing blogger Dan Farber to become editor in chief at News.com (of course, Farber is so much more than a mere blogger).
In fact, in the past year, many of these technology blogs have gone from being a one-site, one-man operation to a multi-site property hiring large operational and editorial teams. In a few instances, companies have even raised considerable funding. The quest to build an audience and generate ad revenues has pitted many of these sites in a competitive and cooperative dynamic that might indeed suggest that most of these sites have peaked.
Due to the entrepreneurial nature of the people involved, I doubt that these sites will disappear. Given the shift of ad dollars and audiences online, I am sure they won’t.
However, clearly many of them will have to reinvent themselves and adopt new strategies to remain relevant. Let’s face it, particularly since Gabe Rivera unleashed Techmeme.com, a lot of the content being published on many of these sites has become a carbon copy of one another.
This is commonplace: at the beginning of the 20th century, America had hundreds of car companies; by the end of the century, there were three major ones. The point is, expect considerable competition to give way to consolidation, transformation and inevitably, extinction.
Before we get death threats, bear in mind that there are are hundreds of blogs networks and millions of blogs. No human being or team can go through all worthy networks. By all means suggest blogs and networks that you read, recommend and respect in the comments.
In this first post, we look at technology-oriented blog networks OR funded blog sites on the cusp of launching networks. We run them down and assess their strengths, weaknesses and long term prospects.
8 - Silicon Alley Insider
It’s hard to compile such a list and not give Silicon Alley Insider its fair share of credit. Self-proclaimed “disgraced stock analyst” Henry Blodget came out of his hibernation on Internet Outsider. Proving that everyone was into open sourcing everything these days, Blodget took his signature research and sensationalist style and unleashed a free blog with a lot of potential.
But it wasn’t until he teamed up with former Doubleclick CEO Kevin Ryan and former DoubleClick CTO Dwight Merriman to launch Silicon Alley Insider that Blodget was back with a vengeance.
In less than a year, Blodget has leveraged the name and skills that made him the world’s highest profile - and arguably highest paid - analyst into a site that has injected a much-needed dose of strategy, analysis and East Coast perspective to the landscape.
- Tale of the tape:
According to Federated Media, John Battelle’s company that represents advertising inventory on many of these sites, SAI does 1,160,000 pageviews.
- From being a one-man shop to an actual company:
Blodget remains the star of the show, for sure, but he deserves credit for lining up some interesting writers, including Forbes technology writers Peter Kafka and Dan Frommer, as well as .
We have personally been very bullish on SAI from the beginning for no other reason that its mission of “serving as the voice and resource for the wider digital business community, SAI covers the intersection of the technology, media and communications industries” is awfully akin to our own desire to go beyond covering the latest widget launch and instead offer readers analysis that sits on the crossroads of Main Street, Madison Avenue, Wall Street and Silicon Valley (pardon our shameless plug and delusional sense of grandeur, by the way, but the similarity is considerable, no?).
Judging by the second part of its mandate: “with a particular focus on companies and people making waves in New York,” SAI has joined Allen Stern’s Center Networks with excellent NY-focused coverage. In fact, the two sites are very complementary in that Center Networks has more of a technology skew while SAI covers finance and advertising a bit more. Combine the two and there’s a reason the city was named twice.
- From property to network:
While SAI remains a one-site media company, make no mistake about it, SAI is ambitious and planning much more, as evidenced by its hiring page. We are thus including SAI on this list, because very much like Venture Beat that has raised funding, despite being a one-site pony, this dark horse has a lot of upside and the wherewithal to give existing blog networks a run for its money.
- Focus: mass vs. niche:
Time will tell just how much SAI will evolve. But being based in NYC, the opportunities are endless. We presume the company’s focus will remain on business, but the applications therein remain interesting.
- Long term business opportunities:
Blodget has already lined up online video via regular appearances on Yahoo!’s Tech Ticker. This might explain Blodget’s cheerleader role for the troubled media company, but the fact remains, of all of these companies, this affiliation does give Blodget and by extension SAI an edge in online video even though SAI does not own any of the IP of the Tech Ticket video library. Whether or not Yahoo!’s Tech Ticker will go anywhere, time will tell… but Blodget’s double-edged star status and brand name will open up doors for the company.
- Revenue potential:
While SAI’s revenue potential remains interesting by virtue of being based in NYC (capital of advertising world), we see SAI far more as a play for influence and authority than a pure money grab.
We must say, given that SAI is based in NYC, we’re somewhat baffled by their choice to go with Federated Media, though we presume that the arrangement is for West Coast representation, mainly.
- The traditional publisher it reminds me most of is…:
Forbes (SAI 100, SA 25 etc.).
- Exits:
Business Week, Forbes, CNET, TheStreet.com. I do see SAI as a consolidator of some of the other blogs out there, for sure.
7- Read Write Web
- From being a one-man shop to an actual company:
To his credit, McManus gets top grades for bringing in new writers who all are knowledgeable in the space, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Josh Katone and Alex Iskold are all extremely insightful in their own right, and network writers Steve O’Hear and company all know their categories. O’Hear produced the documentary In Search of the Valley which chronicles Silicon Valley’s origins and provides a fantastic overview into what makes the Valley so unique and legendary. Kirkpatrick built a loyal following on Tech Crunch before venturing into a PR role at Splash Cast before being lured by McManus.
- From property to network:
- Focus: mass vs. niche
- Long term business opportunities:
Clearly it is smarter to have publications covering video and search, but I wonder how popular those will ever become relative to RRW. Regardless, he has developed a good base of writers, a stellar reputation and been around long enough to be able to survive any ups and downs. I do not think that McManus should over extend himself and reach dozens of blogs, however, he needs to ensure that online video and search are as strong as the weakest links in competing tech blogs spin-offs (which compete with RRW, basically).
As an intangible, the company should be able to create conferences in South Asia and the Pacific and be able to generate enough interest from Europeans and North Americans looking for an opening in the market, sort of like a bridge between East and West.
In fact, McManus’ home base gives him a leg up on the other blogs (when news comes out late at night or overnight in North Ameirca, it’s the middle of the day down under).
- Revenue potential:
Due to the proximity to Asia, pretty decent. But as a tech blog network, it needs to articulate what advertisers get over the competition. That remains a challenge given its size.
- The traditional publisher it reminds me most is…:
6- Venture Beat
- About the Founder:
Venture Beat is not a blog network (at least to the best of our knowledge) but having raised $320,000 in angel funding from a powerhouse roster of investors that includes ex-Googlers Georges Harik and Aydin Senkut, Mike Brown (Foundation Capital), MHS Capital, Amidzad and the White Sand Group, it certainly should be included in the landscape of professional blog networks, regardless of whether it goes from being one site to a network of sites.
VB was founded by Matt Marshall, who covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News until he left in September 2006 to launch VentureBeat as an independent company. The site was initially called SiliconBeat but has expanded to cover more financing news, hence the change in moniker.
A PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University, Matt was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 through 1998. In 1999 he wrote a book while in Germany, “The Bank: the Birth of Europe’s Central Bank and the Rebirth of European Power” (published by Random House, 1999). He has also written for the Washington Post and several other publications.
- From being a one-man shop to an actual company:
Marshall bootstrapped the company early on and remained the site’s voice, but he did hire interesting writers such as Eric Eldon and recently lured Dean Takahashi of the Mercury News (along with his $120,000 annual salary) thanks in part to that $320,000 funding round.
- From property to network:
Unlike the other networks, VB has focused on financings and we think this razor sharp focus will help Marshall remain differentiated. Yes, in the short term he might not get the kind of advertisers that might land on other networks, but the truth is that most of those deals are coming from Federated Media (so they are being sliced up considerably as is) and he is better off becoming the “must-buy” site for professional services firms (law, accounting, VC firms) and select companies instead of fighting for the pieces in technology like the others do.
- Focus: mass vs. niche:
It should be noted that VB is also adding a lot of features (Venture Board and Job Board) that other sites like Tech Crunch launch as separate destinations. Frankly, given VB’s smaller traffic and niche nature relative to Tech Crunch’s massive audience and reach, the different strategies are actually each correct for each site.
- Tale of the tape:
According to Federated Media, Venture Beat generates 470,000 pageviews per month.
- Long term business opportunities:
Naturally, VB can plan a few conferences and charge a bundle.
A decision the company will have to make is to launch subscription-based services to generate more revenue and diversify or it can seize the opportunity to shrink many of the markets in which VB’s traditional competitors compete in, it can do so by taking advantage of its lower cost base to offer for free what competitors need to charge for.
In fact, it can even undercut its online competitors / complimentary services such as TheFunded.com or Dealipedia by leveraging its audience. Over time, I can actually see VB raising money and acquiring some of these services.
- Revenue potential:
The revenue will be recurring and stable because professional services will line up to advertise, but it won’t be exponential. Like everyone else, there will be considerable conference opportunities for VB, that is for sure. Eventually, I see VB favoring subscription services because its readership will consist of many businesses who don’t mind forking over recurring fees for accurate information on the market.
- The traditional publisher it reminds me most is…:
Crain or Thomson Financial, actually, units thereof.
- Exits:
It won’t be long before VB is acquired. After all, the instant outside money came in, an exit is required. That exit won’t be an IPO, but we see an acquisition by someone interested in the professional services market. We even see News Corp. potentially making a run to compliment WSJ as it looks for more financial real estate (especially since it now plans to wisely keep WSJ behind a paid wall).
Acquisition by Thomson, Crain, Pearson, TheStreet.com, CNBC or News Corp. for either WSJ or FOX Business.
5 - Mashable
In the summer of 2005, Pete Cashmore bet on black, and he struck gold.
A few months before launching Mashable as a blog covering social networking, News Corp. acquired MySpace’s parent for $580M. That deal created Fox Interactive Media, but more importantly, it ushered an era of unprecedented investment in so-called social networking concepts and companies. While Michael Arrington was covering it all from Silicon Valley, Pete Cashmore was returning the favor from London.
Over the next three years, both sites have grown to become synonymous with Web 2.0 and social networking respectively.
- From being a one-man shop to an actual company:
Admittedly, nowadays you have to look hard to find a new post penned by Pete Cashmore; indeed, much of the posts come from contributors Mark Hopkins, Kristen Nicole, Adam Ostrow, Tamar Weinberg and company, but this has allowed Cashmore to build a comprehensive company around Mashable.com.
- From property to networks:
Admittedly, Cashmore is a new media maven who has proven his chops by maniacally focusing on one site, Mashable, while many of his counterparts have taken a multi-site approach to brand and company building.
By leveraging the popularity of the site and goodwill he has generated, Cashmore complements Mashable.com with consulting services as well as bells and whistles services that turn the site covering social networking into a social network of its own.
- Focus: mass vs. niche:
Admittedly, Mashable is a big play on social networking. While a lot of companies, products and services focusing on social networking have come and gone, Mashable remains the shovel and helmet supplier equivalent of the space. While 99% of social networking sites will bomb, all 100% of services in the space (including the 1% that succeed) have to go through Mashable. For that reason, Cashmore’s razor sharp focus on social networking is actually genius.
- Tale of the tape:
Federated Media’s site gives Mashable 5,170,000 pageviews. Clearly Mashable is a large blog and bills itself as the largest one covering social networking.
- Long term business opportunities:
Cashmore already seems to have diversified away from a pure-publishing and advertising model to one that includes consulting and what not. I am frankly not sure how meaningful those businesses are, but the mere suggestion that they are additional product lines is important as it gives Mashable a greater sense of value.
Despite its sole focus on social networking, the fact is that social networking itself is not a fad, media has gone social so Mashable has a chance to galvanize the coverage thereof. In light of Tech Crunch’s increasing reach and scope, Mashable has the opportunity to become the leading brand in the specific space, in fact.
- Revenue potential:
Given Mashable’s audience and size, it can generate decent revenues from advertising alone but clearly, if Cashmore can build up a real consulting business around the brand, the advertising business can look pretty small next to the services business… especially if he finds as many consultants to match his roster of writers.
- The traditional publisher it reminds me most is…:
Any publication that is issued by a professional services organization.
- Exits:
Depending on how meaningful Cashmore can make the consulting business, Mashable has various growth opportunities, and as such, numerous exit routes, too.
4- GigaOm
- About the Founder:
I’ve personally met Giga Om founder Om Malik a few times and certainly consider him a friend and mentor. The man knows publishing, technology, new media… and common sense. With that being said, Malik came to NYC in 1993 to write for venerable Forbes. He’s also written for Red Herring, Business 2.0 along with occasional writings for the Wall Street Journal and Crain’s NY Business. Incidentally, not many people know this: but he was, briefly, a venture capitalist.
I think this gives Malik an interesting appeal as a writer, because he surely does not regurgitate press releases and spew the company pitch. Malik will tell you what’s on his mind. He’ll tell you if something seems off or fishy.
- From being a one-man shop to an actual company:Malik has managed to use his network of writers - and True Ventures’ funding - to lure many talented writers. Liz Gannes and Chris Albrecht are very good writers, but I am biased because I read some of Malik’s blogs more than others. He has an impressive roster of full-time and part-time writers that certainly give Malik a lot of points in this category.
In fact, in December 2007, Malik suffered a heart attack, he has recovered but the fact that his company did not miss a beat speaks volumes about the team he has put in place. In addition to the staff of writers, it should be noted, GigaOmMedia’s operational bench is also second to none.
- From property to network:
Malik’s blogging empire includes
- GigaOm: broadband and telco news,
- WebWorkerDaily: productivity at the office
- NewTeeVee: online video
- Earth2Tech: admittedly a play on the burgeoning Green herd mentality (hey, he was a VC at one time)
- FoundRead: a sort of editorially curated bookmarking site, I presume.
- Focus: mass vs. niche
Clearly the sites in Giga Om Media’s network have a penchant for broadband, which is what Malik’s background lies in. I do not see Malik ever branching out to lifestyle, for example, and I’m not sure anyone wants them to, either.
- Tale of the tape:
According to Federated Media, GigaOm (the site) generates 1,250,000 pageviews/month, round it up to 1.5M-2M for the entire network.
- Long term business opportunities:
Clearly an actual publishing business already, I see Malik emulating Rafat Ali and adding country-specific sites as well to go deeper into the sectors they cover.
- Revenue potential:
Limited to technology and consumer electronics, but by virtue of these being big enough categories and his readership being extremely valuable, GigaOmMedia will do fine. The CPM he can charge are probably considerable. As a wise man once said, The Economist does not need to publish a 200-page magazine to generate boatloads of money. Neither does GigaOm.
- The traditional publisher it reminds me most of is…:
Fast Company, Industry Standard, Ziff Davis
- Exit:
Despite all of the talk that one day CNET might buy Tech Crunch, I see some considerable personality conflicts before the lawyers are even called in. However, I certainly see CNET making a run at Giga Om. I could be wrong because CNET has a lot of writers and GigaOm has a lot of writers…
3- Tech Crunch
- About the Founder:
Michael Arrington launched Tech Crunch in 2005 to cover Web 2.0 startups. A former corporate attorney, Arrington has an interesting career that spans law firms and jobs in business development/counsel roles in the domain name industry in the US and Canada.
According to Google, over 14,000 other sites link to TechCrunch, and Technorati says TechCrunch is the 16th most influential blog in the world. Named ‘Best of the Web 2006′ by BusinessWeek.
- From being a one-man shop to an actual company:
Tech Crunch is synonymous with Michael Arrington, no doubt. Of all of the networks, Tech Crunch faces the biggest risk of not being able to go from a one-man show to a cohesive unit because TC’s coverage was never objective nor abstract, it was always subjective and personal, coming straight from the gut.
As such, striking the same balance with new writers will always remain a challenge.
To his credit, Arrington has surrounded himself with a cornucopia of talented writers over the years, including Marshall Kirkpatrick in the early going. Today he employs blogging pioneer Duncan Riley and has even managed to lure Erick Schonfeld to the cause; Schonfeld is a gifted and experienced writer who has become his Co-Editor. Yes, I know, that title will have to change over time if Schonfeld is to remain part of the team in the long-run. I think Arrington realizes that, but also recognized that he could not set Schonfeld up for failure by bringing him on and appointing him Editor from the get-go.
- From property to network:
Tech Crunch remains the 800-pound gorilla in the industry, let alone within Arrington’s empire… but he has nonetheless churned out TC UK (who itself has had an interesting history, especially in the backdrop of the TechNation debacle), along with CrunchGear and MobileCrunch. Personally, I’ve visited the other sites all of 5 times, but that’s my shortcoming and not a result of the writers. In fact, it makes total sense for Arrington to have carved out those two sites.
I must say that his CrunchBase database listing companies’ has potential to be something interesting, though given the state of flux of most of the “companies” TC reviews, I find that it might turn out to be a perennial distraction too. Certainly give his team props for trying to do something out of the box. All in all, I like it and hope it survives and develops; it sure beats its inital incarnation (TC readers will know what I am referring to).
- Focus: mass vs. niche
Tech Crunch is actually somewhat focused but it has no doubt gone from covering startups to covering startups and established companies, no doubt. Tech Crunch’s massive success dwarfs the other sites: there’s a UK version, along with spinoffs in mobile and consumer electronics, there’s also Crunch Notes which gives a glimpse into the sojourn of launching a publication online and the challenges of startup life… In all fairness, Crunch Notes occasionally provide good fodder but is usually a big echo chamber with details I am unaware of, but that, once again, is not a knock, just an observation.
While many have pointed out that TC does not represent consumer trends and is in fact very niche, the simple fact is that it’s grown to be the largest “niche” site, with over 500,000 RSS subscribers.
- Tale of the tape:
Tech Crunch is the king of pageviews amongst this peer group, with 5,510,000 pageviews per month, according once again to Battelle’s Federated Media.
- Long term business opportunities:
Some days, I think TC founder Michael Arrington will burn out, others I think he is on his way to becoming a cross between Bob Guccione Jr. meets Roger Penske. Puh-lease let me explain.
He reminds me of Guccione Jr. simply due to the Axl Rose affair where he was willing to step into the ring and actually fight Rose after the Guns ‘n’ Roses front man called him out in Use Your Illusion’s Get in the Ring. Bear in mind, while Rose had the tough guy persona, Guccione Jr. had been taking karate for a decade. That’s right, Rose backed down. In some ways, Arrington does not back down from anyone, regardless of the merit of the debate and independent of whether he’s right or not.
Why Penske? Penske was a great driver who risked his life every week at races. Eventually, someone made him realized that his time - and life - was better spent making deals and what not. So Penske gave up the driver’s seat for the business duties. I am not sure if Arrington is Penske or the anti-Penske because as a lawyer and entrepreneur, Arrington’s track record is not as impressive as his track record as a writer and publisher is, so maybe, he should hang the legal briefs and business plan and simply write his heart out. Legend has it that he would blog away at his desk until he literally passed out.
That’s something I went through when I wrote my second book (on Alexander the Great) in 6 days in 2004, the difference was, I did that for 6 days and realized I did not want to do it 24/7/365… Arrington seems to have done it for two years so he deserves a lot of credit for his stamina, persistence and determination.
All to say, Arrington’s legacy remains to be seen: time will tell if he is Priceline or Pets.com, but like both Penske and Guccione Jr. the man is a fighter and takes no crap. Agree or disagree with him, I like that about him and despite the warts estimate that he will be around in one form or another for years and decades to come.
- Revenue potential:
One word: considerable.
Tech Crunch not only has a solid readership in terms of quality of its audience, but it has racked up considerable media mentions, something that sways media buyers looking to spend ad dollars. Lastly, Tech Crunch’s relative high audience ensures that it can actually earn ad dollars, too. Admittedly, 5M pageviews is tiny by maistream publishing standards, but for a blog that was largely a one-man operation for its first year of operations, it’s pretty impressive.
Tech Crunch has already branched off into events and conferences.
- The traditional publisher it reminds me most is…:
Industry Standard meets Red Herring with a dash of Penthouse (if we are to continue the Guccione example, after all).
- Exit Strategy:
Well, Henry Blodget has already pointed out the inevitable CNET possibility. I’d also throw in News Corp. for no reason other than Tech Crunch’s CEO Heather Harde was a dealmaking maven at Fox Interactive Media…
2- Content Next (Paid Content)
- About the Founder:
Rafat Ali launched Paid Content over five years ago so that he could showcase his writing skills in the hope of getting a job. At a time when companies were laying off writers and new media was the butt of the joke, Ali hustled and beat everyone to the story. Today, he sits arguably at the top of the echelon in the industry’s leading publication covering media.
- From being a one-man shop to an actual company:
Gradually, and we mean gradually, Ali has hired a wide array of writers. Today he is backed by Staci Kramer as Co-Editor (Ali remains Publisher and Co-Editor). CNM employs numerous writers that include David Kaplan, Joseph Weisenthal and company.
- From property to network:
After launching a site devoted to wireless news, MocoNews.net, Ali proceeded to scale his network by going against the grain: instead of slicing up the topics by segment, Ali seems to be focusing more on geography now, with sites in the UK and India, dubbed ContentSutra.com. Both sites have strong writers under the leadership of Robert Andrews and Nikhil Pahwa respectively.
- Focus: mass vs. niche:
Context Next Media’s focus remains media, and with the line between old and new media becoming blurrier and blurrier, we think that the B2B and B2C topics up for grabs for Ali across the numerous geographies should represent considerable upside over time. When the dust settles, Ali will have built a mainstream brand.
- Tale of the tape:
One of the few sites not repped by Federated Media, I suspect CNM does about 4M pageviews per month, though the company’s mailing list is the real gem and crown jewel. The number of media executives, bankers, investors and entrepreneurs who start their day with Paid Content remains very high, even since Gabe Rivera launched his genius TechMeme product.
- Long term business opportunities:
Considerable.
Ali has built the top brand in the space, the WSJ or Fortune of online media. The hustle, determination and can-do attitude at a time (when he launched) when few took him seriously (by virtue of the industry’s mood) are sources of motivation for any entrepreneur, writer and aspiring publisher. What Ali has been able to do, out of LA (so much of what he covers is NY-centric, which is three hours ahead of LA!) is simply amazing. Today, of course, Content Next Media is fairly global.
The company has also brought in an impressive operational team and is backed by the dean of venture capital, Alan Patricof, whose Greycroft Partners invested in CNM in 2006.
- Revenue potential:
You don’t need to be an advertising guru to realize that Paid Content is printing money. The site boasts about sponsorship packages which shun CPM-pricing models, signaling that business is booming at CNM. The company’s conferences and mixers are adding velocity to the company’s top line, and with a lean structure (the company only last year got an actual office), we’re sure that the bottom line is healthy, too. Lastly, the site has in the past tinkered with reports and studies, but seeing Ali give some of these away suggests that the company is - like most publishers - looking for more ad-supported inventory and not seeing the kinds of return in subscriptions as it is in advertising.
- The traditional publisher it reminds me most is…:
Variety and Fortune meets Playboy. Let me explain.
Variety is quite simple: what Variety is/was to entertainment news, Paid Content is to media news, which is always related to entertainment.
Why Playboy? Well, Hugh Hefner worked at Esquire, asked for a $5 raise and didn’t get it. When Esquire moved from Chicago to NYC Hef stayed behind and launched Playboy. Today, the rest is history. In the same vein, Rafat could not land a job five years ago yet today he is the first to report on job changes, industry news and mergers and acquisitions that change the landscape.
Why Fortune? Well, Fortune is the Cadillac of publications in the space, and online, Paid Content remains the gold standard.
We’re not saying that Paid Content will never be dethroned, in fact, it’s close on any given day. But much the same way that people like Henry Luce revolutionized the print industry, Rafat Ali deserves just as much credit for changing the online space… so there’s a hint of Fortune, too. I’d also toss in Dow Jones, for a few reasons: seeing Ali hold court at the Waldorf=Astoria, interviewing Gordon Crovitz (the publisher of The Wall Street Journal) at the recent Future of Business Media conference, I could not help but think of the common lineage between Dow Jones - once a humble newsletter - and Paid Content, whose newsletter wakes up hundreds of thousands of readers every day from Mumbai to Madison Avenue.
- Exits:
WSJ, Time Warner, CBS (Marketwatch founder Larry Cramer sits on his board, he was formerly President of CBS Digital before Quincy Smith came on board. Read our “meritless post” on this last rumor here).
1- Valleywag, part of Gawker Media
- About the Founder:
Frankly, it’s hard to talk solely about Valleywag and not put it in the context of the Gawker Media network, since that’s the point of the post. As such, it’s worth noting that as a blog network, Gawker Media is the GE, MSFT, Google, Facebook, etc., of its space.
Founder Nick Denton was always a step ahead: an Oxford educated former journalist for The Financial Times, Denton did the whole business networking thing before it became common place (First Tuesday), content syndication (Moreover) and then blogs before Movable Type conjured anything other than Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press.
Denton’s net worth has been estimated at over $250M, fueled by the sale of First Tuesday and Moreover, as well as his holdings in Gawker Media, which he funded with his own personal money.
- From being a one-man shop to an actual company:
While Gawker Media is synonymous with Nick Denton to those in the industry, to its readers, I doubt that it is, and this is key. Since its inception, Gawker Media has lured and developed more writers than most established publications.
- From property to network:
If we’re going to ask how well Gawker has gone from a property to a network, we need to start not with Valleywag, but with Gawker, the flagship property. As of January 2008, Gawker’s sister sites include 15 different weblogs, including Defamer, Fleshbot, Deadspin, Wonkette, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Consumerist and Kotaku… oh, and Valleywag.
- Focus: mass vs. niche:
We might be repeating ourselves, but Denton has cornered the market. No other blog network can match the brand equity Denton’s blogs command, offer the audiences he can offer across as many verticals that Gawker can. Especially once Time Warner bought Weblogs Inc. for $25M, Denton’s Gawker Media became one, if not the most valuable and sought after privately held publishing company in the world, which just happened to be powered on blogging software.
- Tale of the tape:
Denton is notorious for publicly announcing the traffic on his sites. Gawker Media’s traffic is heads and shoulders above all other blog networks.
- Long term business opportunities:
Gawker can - if it has not already - enter merchandising, movies, and even, dare we say it, print (though we doubt it will).
It can also have a sizable and interesting mobile business. Of course, to do that, it needs a better grasp of video opportunities, which all of these companies generally fare poorly in.
- Revenue potential:
The estimates are all over the place, but in my opinion, the company currently does $20M in annual revenues (or just under $2M per month on average, I suspect its strongest month is November when it does about $3-4M in revenue). That figure is very feasible given its traffic, brand equity across all sites, demographics and the proximity to Madison Avenue…
It is conceivable for Gawker Media to become a $100M in annual revenue company within 10 years, if not sooner. With 20 blogs, that’s only $5M each per year, a rather attainable figure. Flesh out the more seedy sites like Fleshbot and adjust accordingly upwards for premium categories like Gizmodo and you will see that it’s not very hard to command a revenue figure that impressive.
- The traditional publisher it reminds me most is…:
Hearst or Conde Nast.
- Exits:
While founder Nick Denton says otherwise, this is a no-brainer: News Corp., Time Warner, Hearst or Conde Nast. Though Time Warner did buy competitor Weblogs Inc., and is looking at unloading all non-network AOL properties and content sites.
Ultimately, however, I see Denton refusing to sell and becoming the Hearst or Conde Nast himself. Mind you, the revenues might not come close, but in terms of mindshare and relevance - particularly online - he’s almost surpassed them.
CONCLUSION
We hope you enjoyed this list of tech-focused blog networks. All right, now like any self-respecting blogger, bash away.
Upcoming posts to come include:
- Top VC blogs (ex: AVC, Paul Kedrosky, etc.)
- Stand-alone blogs to watch out for in 2008 (ex: TechDirt, Alarm:Clock, Center Networks, Daily Tech, Laughing Squid, Gaping Void, Lost Remote, etc.)
- Big company blogs (ex: Boomtown, Tech Trader Daily, Business Week, CNET, Betc.)
- Entrepreneur blogs (ex: Jason Calacanis, John Battelle’s Searchblog, Max Levchin, etc).
Suggestions are welcome for all as we formulate those lists.
Editor’s notes:1 - Weblogs Inc., whom Time Warner acquired was excluded from the list by virtue of not being a privately held company, but surely deserves consideration on this list but will probably pop up in Big Company Blogs.
2 - Moreover, I suppose it is worth mentioning that HipMojo.com and the Blogger Mojo network are directly / indirectly competitive to some / many of the sites mentioned above.
Last year, I asked if Google would surpass MSFT by 2010, this year, with Google crossing $600 and $700 in a matter of weeks, Silicon Alley’s Henry Blodget and Tech Crunch’s Duncan Riley are getting in on the fun.
For the record, it is highly possible to think that Google will be worth a lot more than it’s worth today, but there’s also a lot to suggest that it won’t. When you break down the variables, it’s plausible to think that Google might be the world’s first trillion dollar company, too, but there is enough to suggest that that company will be based in China or India, and involved in wireless. Of course, these last three traits are right now very speculative, so Google is as good of a bet as any. But more on Google later, the thing that struck me most with Duncan Riley’s most, who is Australian, is that he asks: Imperium: Google’s March Towards Becoming America’s Biggest Company.
The key word, my friends, is America. Has America lost its edge? Probably. I am very sure that the world’s most valuable company in 10 years will not be an American one. The US currency is a shadow of its former self. Growth will come increasingly from Russia, China and India.
Back to Google, don’t get me wrong: Google has a lot of growth opportunities, and almost gets 50% of its revenues from abroad, but right now it only generates ads from search ads… once it begins to monetize YouTube, integrates Doubleclick etc., there is upside, but we should also put down the koolaid and realize that Microsoft remains a pretty good bet on that front: it will do nearly $60B in revenues, 5x what Google will do in 2007. Sure, MSFT is not growing anywhere near as fast as Google, but Google is a one trick pony whereas MSFT can more easily gain market share in Internet than Google can add market share (at least that’s the theory). The Web shall inherit the meek, I suspect that by 2021, web ads will be larger than TV ads… and guess who’s value will increase to reflect that?
While everyone is getting giddy in a remarkably 1999-esque fashion, I’d like to point your attention to the last Web-based company that had trillion dollar aspirations: Infospace, who’s Naveen Jain said “we’ll be a trillion dollar company.”
At one point, in 2000, Infospace’s market cap was $25B. Today, Infospace’s enterprise value is worth $425M.
Infospace was never a Google, mind you… but Google isn’t yet the America’s most valuable company yet, let alone a potential trillion dollar company either.
With China’s economy in a bubble-esque state of euphoria, I suspect that the market in China will face a correction in the hangover period after the Olympics… but after things settle down, expect one company to emerge from China to become the world’s most valuable company before long.
I’ve been chronicling the dynamics of blogs and print magazines over the past year.
Trust me when I say the momentum is shifting from magazines to blogs specifically faster than it’s moving from print to online. Right now, the pioneers who dove into blog publishing, namely Rafat Ali, Nick Denton, Om Malik, Michael Arrington, Richard McManus et al. are easily heading towards becoming the men who are creating the Hearst, Conde Nast, Future Publishing, Time etc. of the 21st century.
To be fair, Jason Calacanis should on that list too, since they (along with his partners Brian Alvey and Peter Rojas) have the only blog empire (Weblogs Inc.) that both put up numbers on the board and cashed its chips. But he’s out of the blog game now, while the abovementioned men are doubling down.
And, don’t let the macho veneer fool you, beneath the external competitive jockeying, all of them understand that it’s their (as a group) game to win, and the magazines to lose. But more on this in a bit.
There’s still room for new players, after all, by 1980, FOX was not exactly spoken of in the same breath as were ABC, CBS and NBC. Today, FOX is on many days more potent that some of the initial 3 combined.
Connecting the dots from print to TV, in 1 or 2 years, blogs will be far more influential and important than they are today, but the pace and velocity of that shift will settle down a bit. By then, you will see an acceleration of TV to online video… something that has started today but will accelerate in a couple of years.
But today, it’s about print, and blogs: one of the first business writers I recall reading, Erick Schonfeld, made the announcement that he was not heading to Fortune, Business Week, the WSJ, but rather, Tech Crunch. Read his comments here. When Business 2.0 announced its last edition, you knew a writer with Schonfeld’s caliber and connections would not remain a free agent for too long, but you also expected him to be lured to one of the venerable print establishments.
And speaking of the print establishments, I’ll hold off judgment, but history will recall that Time Warner decided against keeping Business 2.0 afloat because it meant letting go in the hands of a competitor, Mansueto Ventures.
That says a lot, and maybe that’s why Schonfeld turned his back on print to embrace the web.
That says a lot about the state of the industry; it also speaks volumes about Michael Arrington - who announces the move here - following in the footsteps of Rafat Ali and Om Malik, moving from a one-man show to an actual trade publishing company.
Denton went big from Day 1, and that explains why his Gawker Publishing is ranked as the most valuable blog empire to this day and he the top ranked blogger.
Folks, we’re seeing the lines being redrawn in the sand…
Related:
- More Writers Jump Ship
- From writer/executive to publisher/founder
- Will Blogs displace books?
- Is blogosphere maturing or normalizing?
- Is blogging vested journalism?
- Blogs, blog networks and blogpimping
- USA Today on “Bloguls” Om Malik and Michael Arrington
- Wired and Newsweek Join Michael Arrington/Tech Crunch Roast
- How Bloggers Can Avoid Bloglag
- Does Tech Crunch Need an M&A CEO?
- Nick Denton Leaving Valleywag, to Focus Full Time on Gawker
- Richard McManus’ Empire, Down Under
- Blogs Account for 2-3% of Online Advertising?
- Om Malik’s GigaOm Hires COO
- Read Write Web Hires former Tech Crunch Writer Marshall Kirkpatrick
I just got back from SF, my second red-eye flight back in two weeks. I was invited to attend Tech Crunch 40, and I posted 40 reviews of 40 companies in real-time. That was pretty intense… here they are:
- Session # 1: Search and Navigation
- Session # 2: Mobile and Communications
- Session # 3: Community and Collaboration
- Session # 4: Crowdsourcing
- Session # 5: Productivity and Web Apps
- Session # 6: Revenue Models and Analytics
- Session # 7: Rich Media and Mash Ups
- Session # 8: Entertainment for All Ages
I actually have two more posts, one recapping the panels and one on my picks… those will come later today or tomorrow. I just want to thank Jason Calacanis, Michael Arrington and their entire team for inviting me to their inaugural conference.
The following is constructive criticism, feedback, and really more about the industry at large than TC 40. It’s basically me trying not to suck up and maintain some integrity.
Here is the good, bad and ugly of Tech Crunch 40.
The Good:
#1 - The Quality of the Panel Members Was Simply Amazing.
I cannot think of any occasion, time or place where I will be within a few meters of business legends Michael Moritz, David Filo, Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, Yossi Vardi, let alone more recent successful entrepreneurs like Chad Hurley, Caterina Fake, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. The list goes in, it was also very nice to put a face to names like Roelof Botha, Brad Garlinghouse etc. I think that this is the one area that Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington will have a very, very hard time at next year’s event (don’t doubt it, there will be one, if you want proof, the URL redirects to http://www.techcrunch40.com/2007/index.php).
Sure, Jason Calacanis’ relationship with Sequoia helped, as did Michael Arrington’s amazing platform at TC, but those are testaments to their hard work and determination, so more power to them.
# 2 - The Panel Topics
All panels were really good, in fact. From “Humble Beginnings” to” Getting Funded” and “Exit Strategies”, I can honestly say that as an entrepreneur, investor and writer, they were worth the price of admission alone.
# 3 - Arrington vs. Zuckerberg
Clearly, Michael Arrington was the man of the hour when he had Mark Zuckerberg alone, on stage, for 45 minutes. Zuckerberg doesn’t do too many interviews like that… I think that it could have been better, but I understand Michael being more of a product guy than a strategy person, that’s why he focused on product questions. That is not a knock suggesting that Arrington is not into strategy, it’s that he is more into product issues… I also think that Zuckerberg would have been less prone to talk sales strategy, M&A, etc., things that I am more into.
# 4 - 40 Launches in 2 Days
Regardless of everything else, TC 40 still saw 40 companies launch new wares in 2 days, in one city. That is very impressive and shows just how much muscle TC flexes in the Web space.
# 5 - Location, location, location
It’s a shame I booked late, because the Palace was booked… but it was a wonderful spot. Good eye to whomever picked it.
# 6 - Arrington and Calacanis
I’m not sucking up (just wait until you read the end), but the MCs were actually entertaining… Calacanis has the right mix of industry know-how and interviewer to pull it off… Arrington’s swagger and confidence was in full-effect, they played their roles perfectly… and I don’t for one second think it was role-playing.
The Bad
# 1 - Tech Crunch 40 Presentations
All right, I actually enjoyed the 40 presentations, don’t get me wrong here. I also like to think that I took a different route by not only sitting through all 40 pitches, but acting like a VC or angel and judging them on criteria an investor would. To see what the criteria was, click here. They were:
1 - The Elevator Pitch: Description of Company, Feature, Product or Service
2 - Reminds Me Of…
3 - Originality
3 - Validation: Biz Dev Deals, Potential Clients and Partners
4 - Income vs. Capital Gain: Will this company generate ad revenue beyond Google Ad Sense, or is it a burn through money and then flip it?
5 - Can it Raise VC or is their market closed (have VCs moved on?)
6 - Exit Options: who can buy them… and is an IPO likely in X years?
7 - Bottom Line…
# 2 - Products and Features, Few - If Any - Companies
The problem was that 40 companies to present for 6 or 8 minutes is fine, but they should have all had a consistent checklist of things to cover. After all, a VC asks entrepreneurs for 10 slides on topic 1 through 10, I really don’t see why TC40 was different. By allowing companies to present in any way they could - and the audience really not knowing much about any of the companies - it made it chaotic and ineffective.
My main problem with the TC 40 is not even with form but content. All of the companies were ultimately derivatives of 3 or 4 applications, but simply deployed to something slightly different. Entrepreneurs who recognize trends and build companies around them should not be blamed, but I did not see more than 4 companies, let alone 40… I saw features and products, or to quote Flickr’s Caterina Fake, “satellites not planets”. This is arguably the most dangerous thing of Web 2.0, and I was hoping for TC40 to mark a new era of Tech Crunch’s coverage but instead, it only reinforced the belief that Web 2.0 is more hype than substance.
Examples of this are ShakeMusic, Storyblender, Kerpoof, for example, being ultimately very similar. Also, on that note, I do not understand, for example, why ShakeMusic and StoryBlender made the Top 40, but Kaltura did not, even though they were picked as the Demo Pit wild card.
It would have also been good to explain what separated the 40 from the Demo Pit companies, because in my opinion, Kaltura was as good as some of the other ones that were in the Top 40.
# 3 - The Demo Pit
Again, nothing against the companies, I actually think some were better if not as good as the ones that made the Top 40, but it was an impossible task to get press, invitees etc. to pay attention to 40 or so more companies after sitting through 40 companies actually launch. The Demo Pit, in some ways, was more of a disservice than a service. Then again, tell that to Kaltura, who won the wild card and would certainly disagree with me.
# 4 - Disclosures
Ok, I’m not from San Francisco, but I get it: SF is all about conflicts of interest. Fred Wilson is from NY, he wasn’t there, but he always quotes Michael Moritz’s “no conflict, no interest” mantra. You know what, that’s a copout. Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis could have added some great thinkers, executives who were not so conflicted… it was a cesspool!
There were two problems here:
- lack of disclosures (or disclosing conflicts started too late).
- everyone had a conflict on every panel, and some were glaring!
# 5 - The Judges Were Largely Too Nice
Apart from the panel consisting of Hammer, Brad Garlinghouse, Caterina Fake, Loic Le Meur and Sarah Lacy, I respectfully think the other panels were just way too nice. Om Malik showed signs of his usual professionalism (disclosure: I had supper with Om on Sunday evening - haha).
# 6 - Hum… the winner?
Mint.com seems like a good idea and all (and I actually think it shows off how much First Capital has done in such little time), but I am not sure if Mint.com was worthy of the top price. I’ll spare the details but read Allen Stern’s review of the shindig. I think Mint.com was interesting, top 10 perhaps, but winner? No, no way.
# 7 - 40 Selected Were Dubious
All right, I like Phil “Pud” Kaplan and all, but what is AdBrite doing amonst the Top 40? Ad Brite is a Sequoia company and Sequoia was co-organizer Jason Calacanis’ employer, current investor in his venture and oh yes, a major sponsor. That made the entire presentation seem odd, though I liked his observations in the follow-up. It was as ridiculous as putting Right Media up there, how would Pubmattic have felt?
#8 - Google, AOL, Yahoo!
All right, I’m not dumb, I know why they’re there and all (paid placement), but they just stood out like a sore thumb. I would have much rather see executives from these companies on a panel duking out the challenges they face from one another and then from upstarts.
The Ugly
#1 - Wifi
Wifi on Day 1 was pretty slow. At some times, trying to publish a text-based blog post was akin to push an elephant up a hill during a rain slide… but I digress.
# 2 - Demos Were Not All Real and Live
The bigger issue - which admittedly could be a result of the wobbly Internet or cell phone access was the fact that some of the demos were not even real. I mean, come on!
# 3 - How Can I Word This?
There were no companies from Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia’s rival. That is one very basic example. I can list a few other such coincidences that made TC40 feel a bit fake and phony.
I realize saying this might get me barred from an upcoming shindig planned by messers Calacanis and Arrington, and that is a shame, because what they should take away from my review is that the good was really good, the bad were things that ultimately were small and a matter of perspective and the ugly was either technical (easily fixed in upcoming years) or symptomatic of the SF culture that makes me look forward to arrive in town but more eager to get out of it.
All for all, I once again thank Michael, Jason, and their teams who really all worked very hard…
Lastly:
- Who do I think should have won?
- What lessons are to be learned from the wonderful panel experts?
Those are the last two posts from our coverage of Tech Crunch 40.
On a personal note, yes, I was there as a blogger and that is why I listened and reviewed all 40 companies, but I did please my alter ego, the web executive, and land a few major contacts for both business and corporate development deals…
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.
Michael Arrington and Fred Wilson have both blogged in depth about the value of their communities, and they’re right.
Tonight Tech Crunch posted a follow up on Scribd - the YouTube of documents (whatever that means) - mentioning that Scribd (who had secured $4M in VC) was facing competition in the form of Docstoc.
Shortly thereafter, a bunch of commentors quickly added their two cents, and listed a bunch of competitors to these two: ThinkFreeDocs and eDocr to name a few (can I buy a vowel, please?).
Anyway, I never understood Scribd’s business model (then again, many said that about YouTube, MySpace etc). What made Scribd even nuttier was the insane valuation it got in the $4M round. I wrote about it earlier.
But considering that within minutes, if not seconds, a bunch of commentors mentioned a couple of competitors to the #2 in the space, with all due respect to VCs, can someone tell me if they still do any due diligence? Or, do they just plunk down money without doing much research?
I know that sounds unfair, but then consider more odd cases?
Jobster is very promising as an HR social network. But then the CEO seems to carry some baggage. Then, if that’s not enough, it only takes a few minutes to realize that video resumes are not that great of an idea when you consider that it’s a discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen. That means risk. VCs say they’re risk takers, but that seems rather risky to me, no? (Full disclaimer: a couple of companies in the video resume space have asked me to consult them).
Jobster’s not alone, Lifelock also had some founder issues, and Bessemer seems to have overlooked it. What does that say?
It gets better. I met Fanlib’s CEO when I was in LA and he seemed like a very nice guy, but when the site launched, a lot of people pointed out the obvious: trying to profit from fan fiction is great in theory but problematic in practice. There are many reasons for that, I won’t get into them all, but Fanlib’s backers are a who’s who of financiers. Yet the obstacles it will face on many fronts make me wonder: what were the investors thinking?
What’s happened to the craft of investing in startups?
This past Friday, I read about ComVentures allegedly screwing their second portfolio company in less than a year. What the…?
And if you thought this was dissipating, think again, just last week, DAG Ventures, dubbed Coattail Ventures, raised a $477M fund, suggesting that me-too investing is certainly in vogue.
Anyone care to comment on this? Or will we simply shove our heads in the sand?
PLAY
