Five men sat on the panel, not all five compete with one another, but hearing what they were saying, you had to ask: someone’s going to end up losing to the others.
The five men included:
- Barak Berkowitz, CEO Six Apart
- Michael Birch, CEO Bebo
- Tariq Krim, co-CEO Netvibes
- Richard Rosenblatt, CEO Demand Media
- Herb Scannell, CEO Next New Networks
Rafat Ali was the moderator, and he started off by asking Herb Scannell what drew the Viacom executive to new media? Scanell pointed out to the macro trend that saw cable properties on TV funnel away audiences and mindshare from the broadcasters, suggesting that the next step in the evolution is micro audiences online.
“There hasn’t been a hit sitcom since Friends… we are seeing a change in what is a hit. Traditional hits will not exist, brands will speak to people that are connected by passions… Brands should follow audiences and users…” and in light of viewers are migrating in droves online, it’s not surprising to see Scannell getting excited about the Web’s prospects. His company N3 raised $8M from Spark Capital with a small participation from Robert Pittman’s Pilot Group.
Scannell has boatloads of experience and his team is laden with years of experience, but I do see that micro audiences, while passionate, might have problems of scale in the eyes of advertisers, but of course, rates for niche markets are always priced at a premium, so maybe less is more and small is indeed beautiful.
I spoke to Scannell last night, and for a guy who spent a lot of years in TV, he definitely seems to understand the nuances of distribution online, recognizing that the TV model for video will not necessarily work online.
Rafat then asked Richard Rosenblatt about the level of financing Demand Media has raised: more than $100M, for a company that’s been around for a year, in contrast to MySpace that was essentially financed modestly. “No one wants to be a party when no one is there…” defends Rosenblatt, suggesting that speed to scale is critical, and doing so from scratch is not realistic. My gut is that the space is crowded and starting from scratch in social media will prove too little, too late.
Tariq Krim, Co-CEO of Netvibes, runs his company out of Europe, something I was unaware of. This is of note to me, since I have long seen running WatchMojo.com out of Montreal as both a comparative advantage and a hindrance.
Building a social media company is challenging regard where you are, the “idea to product stage is challenging, you need to be passionate about it no matter where you are, but being in Europe helps, diversity is a plus.” Krim talked a bit about building a company for cheap, “personalization” is a major theme in Netvibes’ model and something our new CMS will enable for WatchMojo.com’s audience.
Thinking about it some more, in Netvibes case, being in Europe just might be net, net, more of a plus than a negative: Silicon Valley is way too insular and this allows Netvibes to remain on top of what their users need and demand, instead of rushing to create a product for extremely early adopters only, but will little value to the masses. This reminds me of something that Intel’s former CEO Craig Barrett suggested that some tech outfits go for the 4% of the market they represent, but success comes to hitting and pleasing the 96%…
Krim also touched base on something that was talked about this week, about how the US is no longer the broadband leader around the World, “Europe is far more advanced in terms of broadband…”
Not before long, Ali asks the question that one would hope is on people’s minds: ”How do you make money?”
“The web page as we know it is disappear,” adds Krim. Ali does not seem convinced.
Next up is Michael Birch, CEO of Bebo. MySpace, Facebook… is there room for number 3? Bebo targets USA, Canada, Ireland, Australia, UK, New Zealand - focus on British speaking but monetization is easy given higher rates in UK than US, though the audience size is smaller… the “US is key, and our growth is matching the UK’s growth,” “it’s a couple of years behind the US.” “what social network can be, should be…”
Six Apart CEO’s Barak Berkowitz was next, calling his Six Apart company’s opportunity as “extraordinaly large and horizontal.” He listed his company’s assets and products:
Typepad: Low barrier to entry, do it easy… in mass.
Movable Pad: a behind the scene CMS for larger clients..
Livejournal: A youth oriented product.
Vox: A product for older market, friends and family to communicate with one another.
Richard Rosenblatt took the reins next, and he was the gentleman that sold MySpace to News Corp., when he ran Intermix. He’s now the second largest registrar after an aggressive shopping list over the past year, in his attempt to do for domain names what MySpace did for social networks.
Ali’s final question before opening up the floor, “Can you build a company on other company’s APIs?”
Birch “use it to seed it,”
Scannell “part of the mix”
Rosenblatt: “it’s dangerous, have a fall back plan, because you will be blocked”
The Q&A had a lot of good questions, a common theme from advertisers is “How do [marketers] exist in Web 2.0?”
Tad Smith, of Reed, asked what MySpace would look like were it an independent entity? Rosenblatt said it might be not around, given the additional amount of money that News Corp. invested. He also questioned the conventional wisdom of those who say Intermix sold MySpace for too little, since other media firms were not really buyers.
I finished the Q&A by asking if they feared an over-exuberance and optimism in social media, since four of the five panel members have rather divergent visions of the future of social media. In other words, when the music stops, and it always does, three of the four in social media might not have a chair to sit in, and the one that does will have to take on Google, Yahoo! and other top revenue earners in the space.
Rosenblatt was the only one to answer, arguing that things are cyclical (DCLK anyone?) and it’s not the social media CEOs who hype up social media but, well, the media.
Tags: Uncategorized|
Posted By: Ashkan Karbasfrooshan | Apr 26th
Subscribe:
April 26th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Ah…you’re here too? Hard to find people…
April 27th, 2007 at 11:10 am
1500 post later, I finally found my way to your site. Timing is everything they say.(great site!).
Thanks for the daily recaps from the Economics of Social Media Conference and your question during the Q&A was right on the mark.