Madison Paige

Internet Still Offers Abnormal Positive Returns

One of the challenges of "internet companies" is that they create highly trafficked websites without a clear monetization plan. Obviously it's a catch-22: you cant charge people and expect to get a critical mass of visitors today but you also cannot expect ad revenues to sustain your business indefinitely (and in some cases it cannot be done profitably at all, unless you're Yahoo and have 100 million visitors a day).

In the end these companies and startups will need two key elements for success: something that draws viewers (something people really want) and a sustainable monetization model outside of ad revenue. Figuring out how to have users pay for what they want will require courage and originality of thought (and a very strong product) but some successful models do exist. Otherwise you have companies like Google losing a half billion a year on YouTube and Twitter unable to keep up with service demands.

Why Yahoo Should Take Another Stab at Video Content

All they need is content. And they seem unable to think outside the box.


On May 28 01:08 PM Ashkan Karbasfrooshan wrote:

> 1 - On the content side:
>
> YouTube is 99% UGC and monetizing 5-10% of its inventory.
>
> Yahoo! can skim the content and adopt a strategy where it only features
> ad-friendly, pro-content.
>
> 2 - On the sales side:
>
> Yahoo! knows how to sell to branded advertisers, YouTube - by virtue
> of being part of Google - is more into performance based advertisers.
>
>
> 3 - Strategically
>
> - YouTube is part of a search tech company,
> - Hulu is owned by the media companies,
>
> so both will eventually hit a wall... creating an opening with for
> Yahoo who has a) audience, b) content experience and c) sales savvy.
>
>
> No brainer to me.
>
> The point is, it's not "social or video tech" that will save Yahoo!
>
>
> On May 28 10:27 AM PastTense wrote:

How to Disrupt the Traditional Video Content Business

I think free distribution can work in certain circumstances. Setting up distribution partnerships in much the same way that studios distribute to cable/satellite (only using an affiliate model for distribution partners) can be a creative and effective way to harness the audience needed to generate revenues suffiecient for monetizing production or original programming. This is not possible with all types of content and is best used with content that has a large natural audience online.

The challenge for the majors is learning about and adapting to the new landscape and trying to somehow make it fit into the models they are used to and dependent upon. At some point there must be a breakdown.

New producers are leaner and more agile.