Last week, the rumor crept up. Howard Lindzon made it official today. Congrats to him and his entire team. Well deserved. I wrote about the challenges and thrills of helping create the playbook for online video last week in the “Did CBS Just Acquire Wallstrip for $5M” post here.
VC Fred Wilson, an angel investor in Wallstrip nails it:
But here’s the thing. It’s not entirely about the content on the web. Sure it has to be good enough to attract an audience. But right now, its about way more than the content. Just figuring out how to make a show on a cost basis that can make a profit is hard. How to do it every day is even harder. And figuring out all the other stuff that I listed above is critical. Not many people have figured all that out. But if you don’t know how to do all that stuff, you can’t build a business in web video.
I don’t know if that’s the VC or user talking, but Fred is right: the content is half the story, knowing how to publish video and make it into a business is the real lesson, and experience worth paying for.
I always tell everyone at WatchMojo.com, the content will improve over time, it will change over time, but doing it is really more important. We have taken a different approach than most online video content players, Wallstrip and others are of the video blog variety, some say that we’re more of a Web TV magazine of sorts, the nuances are subtle, but the bottom line is that there’s a premium being placed on those who can build video properties on the web because economics and technology suggests that while TV and the Web (and to some extent Wireless) will blur lines over the next few years, these will not be one and the same either.
Anyway, turns out the $5M price tag might be right, might be wrong, but seeing how CBS and other media companies are getting more and more serious about video, online advertising and digital content in general, I’m not surprised seeing Quincy Smith put a big premium on a team that has been able to create value quickly and efficiently online in the web video space.
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