Jun 21 2007
The business of online video
Online video creators are suffering from a similar malaise to that devastating the newspaper industry: a lack of advertisers willing to underwrite the content.
From the business of online video:
“I think Rocketboom is a great example of where sometimes, our industry and the media that covers it, really goes overboard. From day one, Rocketboom was always talked about as being “successful” simply because they had a ton of traffic and eyeballs. Everyone talked about Rocketboom as the example of how to build a video business on the Internet even though enough people out there were saying, “where’s the revenue”? What’s the business model? Where’s the syndication strategy?….Rocketboom should serve as a wake-up call to those who think that simply having traffic equals revenue and a sustainable, growing business model. Or to those that think online video advertising alone is going to generate a lot of revenue in today’s market”.
The problem Rocketboom CEO Andrew Baron explains is that “Even though we have a relatively large audience, advertisers are just not happy to do ’small deals…they want to blast their commercials to millions of people.” So Rocketboom is considering charging for content.
Philip Hodgetts gloats over the fortunes that could be made by charging just 1c per view, noting “we don’t currently have a mechanism for that type of micropayment”. Clearly there are logistical problems involved in profitably processing 1c transactions. But Jakob Nielsen has been touting micropayments as the panacea for online profitability since 1997. His enthusiasm for the topic seems to have waned somewhat in the last few years.
Could it be that the solution lies not in micro-payments - but in micro-audiences? Insight on this from Hugh Mcleod’s global microbrand, or the much hyped “hyperlocal news” paradigm. Clearly this approach will have limited appeal to big media mavens or the advertising agencies that support them. But as big media continues to scale back I suspect that this segment will not wither for lack of talent.
Jerry quitting Seinfeld: “People ask me all the time, “what next?”. They always assume it has to be something big. They never consider it could be lots of little things. I think that might suit me better”.
[BONUS LINK] tag: foot in mouth
From lostremote:
“Matt Lauer’s highly-promoted William & Harry interview, which aired on the Today Show and Dateline NBC, is available for $1.99 on iTunes. So who would pay to download the 38-minute clip, especially when all of the video is available to watch for free on MSNBC.com? Apparently a fair number of people, as the interview is ranked #2 in the list of most popular TV shows on iTunes right now”.
$1.99 ain’t even micro.
