Dion Hinchcliffe uses the word “monetize” [sic], but the principle is the same. Compare folio the diagram in Part 1.
But the biggest question that comes up is that if you let your users generate most of your content and then expose it all up via an API, how can a profitable business be made from this?
His thesis is to examine methods to go far beyond advertising, subscriptions, and commissions. The bullet points below have been abbreviated for readability.
Some of the indirect ways which lead to revenue growth, user growth, and increased resistance to competition [...] are:
Strategic Acquisition
Maintaining control of hard to recreate data sources.
Building Attention Trust
Turning Applications into Platforms
Fully Automated Online Customer Self-Service
The article is a comprehensive read, and acknowledges pro and con viewpoints for each opportunity,
While a great many startups are not generating revenue in huge quantities yet, the companies that have been diligently exploiting open APIs such as Amazon and Salesforce are in fact generating significant revenue and second order effects from opening up their platforms and being careful not to lose control. This is actually a large discussion, and as large Web 2.0 sites continue to emerge, we’ll continue to keep track of what the successful patterns and practices are.
Thus we are left with questions. Always more questions.
The one that concludes this brainstorm is:
What other implications are there by putting users in control of content generation and open everything up?
November 30, 2006 at 4:18 pm · Filed under business, media
How would you advise a client on the best way to drive participation in one shaded ball towards revenues from another?
I can’t see a clear path forward, as you can’t make a consumer do something; one can suggest and imply a desired action, or one can induce behaviours. You can also create desire for something seemingly unattainable.
But forcibly obliging a customerbase to perform an action? That’s performing-animal territory.
Just grabbed a copy of this yesterday, and started listening to it today on DVD-Audio.
I agree with Giles Martin’s quote:
What people will be hearing on the album is a new experience, a way of re-living the whole Beatles musical lifespan in a very condensed period. [Source: NME]
It’s faithful to memories of The Beatles, and is a respectful mashup. The work that has gone into the Dolby Digital, DTS and 96kHz 24-bit mixes is clearly evident. Why bother with the CD when you can even use the disk in a normal DVD player and rattle the windowpanes with surroundaliciousness?
Well worth a listen even if Cirque du Soleil is not your thing. Strawberry Fields is the standout for me after my first listen.
When people “Switch” to the Mac, they often look for a one-keystroke or one-key-combo screen locker.
And they’re often disappointed to find that the operating system only provides a two-click solution: add the Keychain Access menu item to the menubar, and then use “Lock Screen”.
…but it doesn’t work under Mac OS X for Intel-based hardware. Until now…because I got frustrated with myself for not having done it earlier…
Presenting the Intel-compatible re-compile of LockTight.
Menno’s source code has been recompiled with XCode on an Intel based Macintosh, and contains all the original source code and licensing information as required.
November 23, 2006 at 7:33 am · Filed under it, media
Promising so much since I began looking at the technology at IBC2004, CableCARD hasn’t delivered anything yet into the Asia-Pacific/Pacific Rim region I work in.
Combined with Common Interface Conditional Access Modules, CableCARD could allow an interoperability landscape to flourish amongst HDTVs, Set Top Boxes, media centres and content services.
Do we know what The Next Great Standard for TV is? No, and I’d never pretend anything different.
But the two standards mentioned above exist now, and if used in combination by an end user (such as an HDTV with a CableCARD in Slot 1, and a Neotion CAM in Slot 2) could create a display with aftermarket, yet built-in, IPTV, smartcard-based decryption and MPEG4.
Although never a rabid fan of every single piece of his output, making the opening scene of The Player occupy an entire reel, without editing, took a maverick instinct. That instinct served him well in an industry known for its fickleness.
All of us who love movies certainly needed Altman, who died today in Los Angeles at the age of 81, ending the most improbable career of any major American movie director.
[...]
When he died, Altman was the youngest “old” director in the business. He never stopped experimenting; he never lost the ability to be astonished.
Om Malik encapsulated the Summit right at the end of his overview.
Here, we’re so far ahead of the curve, it’s a race to see who can be cynical first.
Twice at the Web 2.0 Summit, we had funny conversations with people on the topic “what will be the online pet food of bubble 2.0″? Nominees on the floor are social bookmarking sites and mommy-oriented social networks.
November 21, 2006 at 7:49 am · Filed under business, media
The quotes, and rollcall, are the best part of Constance Loizos’ somewhat meandering look at the online video (platform) market.
Looking for the next X, the MySpace of Y, and the del.icio.us of Z in two-dot-oh video sites harks back to the “Pets.com” (inter alia) debacles of Web One; there’s plenty of opportunity to create self sustaining businesses, but everything can’t win, and you can’t “YouTube” every concept.
Those groups creating entire environments, and rounded platforms, for digital audio-visual media including video are potentially being lost in the hype of revveryoutubenetscapebrightcove.
Some people are talking about the realities and the flipsides, such as Fred Wilson:
I have no idea if we are headed for another bust. I sure hope not. But having lived through the 2000 bust with a portfolio that was not “bust proof”, one of the things I think about all the time is how to build a “bust proof” portfolio.
Business 101 Assignment: Consider these VC/C-level-Exec viewpoints, via their notable-quotables, and design an investment portfolio that tracks, but bucks, the trends in order to avoid negative market confluence.
They still want to know that programs reflect the particular values of their product; you largely can’t get that right now at a YouTube.
[...]
Despite what everyone in Silicon Valley likes to think, it’s not in advertisers’ interest to abandon broadcast and cable networks. That’s still where the money is.
Todd Chanko, JupiterResearch
[seeing] a huge move toward higher-end content because cheaper bandwidth and tools are making it more affordable to produce and distribute quality programming online.
Jason Pressman, Shasta Ventures
I don’t think it would be accurate to say that there’s a shift strictly to more quality video. Rather, I think there’s plenty of room for top-of-the-pyramid programming online and YouTube and lots of stuff in between.
Josh Bernoff, VP Forrester Research
I now spend about 60 percent of my time looking at video-related start-ups.
I invested as soon as I was invited to [in Revision3]. I would have liked a bigger piece of Revision3. It costs nothing to create these shows. They can just roll out a new program, and if no one likes it, they can try another. Mike Maples, USD$15m microfund manager
Two years ago, I spent 20 percent of my time on the space. Today, I’d say I spend at least a third to a half of my time.
Jim Breyer, Accel Partners
I don’t want to announce anything until we’ve locked up what we want to do. But we may create derivatives of our core (TV and movie) programming and we may do some original programming.
Naturally, it’s first-generation, and may be enabled only for the Sony branded parts of your livingroom and jacket-pocket.
But free content downloads as 8Mbps MPEG-4 (H.264/AVC) should yield great HD results: I have done tests at those rates and have had only positive reviews so far.
Imagineering the approach Sony may take, I can see harmonious, elegant and profitable integration amongst the Sony properties of:
So-net
Walkman
Playstation Portable
Wega and Bravia
SonyEricsson
There’s no shortage of commentators ready and willing to pile scorn on Sony’s choices based on a creative set of interpretations of Sony’s failures and shortcomings.
