Kiles Blog

A Completely "New Media"

2007-05-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

If you have followed this blog, you know that in my most recent post (Feb 14, ages ago), I spoke of the "Gold Rush Coming" in content related opportunities at the heart of a new land grab facilitated by low costs and advertising services that almost assure profitability.

I did not go into detail and I have not posted since then because I have been busy implementing a new strategy based on that "Gold Rush".

The essence of the new strategy is traffic- understanding where customers are, what they are intersted in and figuring out how to put yourself in the path with something that meets that interest- no rocket science there, right? In fact, between Adwords and AdSense, Google provides all the tools you need in order to 'play'.

If you play it right, you'll have revenues and profitability and a real investment opportunity for others. In fact, the content business you can set up with this model looks more like a hedge fund investment play than a media/content business.

Why? Because in this model, we don't really care if the consumer wants our content. In fact we prefer they click on our ads. We grab a few cents as they travel the Google enabled content ecosystem!

How do you do this? If you are able to think your way through to standing a couple of universally accepted industry rules on their heads, you can get there.

I'm not going to tell you more, just refer you to our project and a few of the properties we have operating. If you go to CPM Capital, you will see that I am serious about the hedge fund analogy.
Then go to GlobetrotterPix, OuterSpacePix or GreatOutdoorsPix (3 of more than 20 advertising investment revenue sites we have built, with hundreds more to come) and try to figure out how we are delivering $25.00 plus CPM rates from these pages!

Drop me a note and let me know if you are interested in learning how to make real returns on investment in technology and content. I am not kidding! And the concepts we stand on their heads...

I'll tell you later.

Gold Rush Coming!

2007-02-14T08:57:00.000-08:00

If you have any internet grey hair (you have been around technology for at least ten years) and been watching all the to do about the Web 2.0 (YouTube, et.al.) fight with the media rights owners (Viacom, etc.) over content rights violations, you probably have an "I have seen this all before" attitude.

And you have.

And if you have been around for less than 10 years, all you need to do is wander over to your local arcade and play a good old fashioned game of "Wack-a-Mole" (I have not seen a good emulation online, or I would point you there) to get the picture of what is going on.

The big rights players are hording their good content away from the internet because they don't know how to monetize (they have the wrong/same people in place managing their digital ventures). The Web 2.0 guys are creating markets of meaningful size, but have trouble with customer loyalty and getting rights content type CPM from advertisers, so they need a strategy to get that content in. They have investors demanding returns (most took way too many $ and find themselves hoping for valuations that will never come- that's the subject of another blog to come).

But when the two groups speak, it is like a 1980s style Reagan/Breshnev discussion or worse. Tech guys don't speak media language and vice versa. The Ad guys want it resolved, but they are fearful of the rights relationships that revolve around TV so they stay away, hoping the situation resolves itself.

But it doesn't, and it all heads to Court. In this Jon Stewart style evolving comedy of miscues and errors (I thought you might like the comparison since the Viacom-YouTube debate is mostly about Daily Show content), this is the funniest part. Once in Court, the idiots are in control of a situation that goes from a Wack-a Mole game to something more like trying to hold that whippet gas in back in college (if you never tried, I am not advising you do...perhaps a different metaphor- herding cats!). By the time all the non-tech lawyers and judges get around to considering the issues, the ecosystem has moved on, the issues are no longer relevant, some people are out of business and the Mole has appeared from a new hole!

Think I'm overstating again? Look at Netscape v. Microsoft (those of you under 10 in internet age may not remember Netscape, but it is on Wiki, so go there)...the issues that went to trial were a joke. Microsoft knew that would be the case and they laughed and danced their way around for a decade, while their cash horde grew to $50B!

So, if the Moles are going to keep getting wacked, why keep trying? Because the $ coming from Ads is growing at an amazing pace (search $ paid out by Adsense are up 70% year over year on a per click basis and keyword prices are up 3-4x) and the expense of maintaining a legit internet publishing business is moving toward $0 at a pace faster than Moore's Law!

Assuming the YouTube syndication strategy fails (seems likely at this point), where does the mole pop up next?

There is a land grab coming of unprecedented proportions with web publishers churning out thousands of sites with new brands, Web2.0 integration and editorial solutions that will not be so easily swatted away. The internet will support 100s of ESPN type businesses of all sizes and all profitable, focused on any vertical you can think of, including camping out in the backyards of the major rights holders with winning legal strategies.

So, hitch up your wagon and join the gold rush. There has never been an easier, bigger opportunity. But where and how to stake the claim?

I'm already in in many places, so soon I'll tell you about that play, but the critical component of this wave will be staying power- not venture capital. Venture Capital leverages staying in the wrong claim with the wrong team. This land grab requires flexibility... so VC capital is silly to take.

Staying in the game because you love it and know how to operate to a profit is where the wins are. Do it once, then do it 500 times. Then you have a meaningful business. And you own it ALL!

Drop me a note if you want to know more.

New Media Calls for New Sports and New Coverage

2007-01-26T04:40:00.000-08:00

Have you noticed the slow pace at which the existing sports leaders have adopted any meaningful attempts to bring their products to the new media? In fact, if you look at all the majors (MLB, NBA, NFL, Premier League Soccer, etc.) there has been no progress at bringing products online in TEN years!

While online growth in general has been astronomical and new solutions and products make clear the unparalleled growth of online as a marketplace, advertising channel and distribution network, the major sports have held back. If you have read this blog before, you know that I have attributed this reluctance to lack of foresight, old-minded execs who don't use new media and other trite, non-original analyses. In fact, one old media exec told me he thought I was sounding a bit pedantic.

So, I have been doing somewhat of a deeper assessment on this issue recently and have come up with another explanation, one that I believe points toward new, disruptive markets and that is based on very real growth opportunities.

The core of this new analysis is that rather than try to fit old sports into new media using existing events developed with old media in mind, it is time to develop new sports with new media in mind. ("New Sports" can include permutations of old sports). We need to assess what new media does well and tailor the sports opportunities so that they take maximum advantage of the best of new media. So, big arena events like football games that are so great for old TV based media may not be right for the new media. NBA games might work perfectly well on HDTV, but interactive one on one tournaments in front of smaller crowds at suitable locations might be better suited for new media.

I saw the light last Friday night up in Reno, NV, that known center of all things Sport! I was attending the Pole Vault Summit (as Dad of someone who wants to fly over 20') and accidentally stumbled into the Summit's Friday nite extravaganza where I saw the light.

What I saw was all at once shocking, extraordinary and inspiring. More than 2,500 people were crammed into the Grand Sierra Resort's Grand Ballroom to watch the USA's best/elite pole vaulters compete in a 'pole vault only' event on the stage of a Casino!

Men's and Women's competitions were held simultaneously with criss crossing runways and ten vaulters of each sex vaulting about 30 seconds apart to ear blasting tunes of every generation since Wodstock and an ongoing, interactive commentary that urged the vaulters to interact with the audience. Neither vaulters or audience disappointed.

Since the audience was comprised of every serious pole vaulter (and their coaches and parents/family) in the USA, the place rocked! They vaulters became entertainers, inciting the crowds with great personalities, spectacular athletic skills and perfect, beautiful bodies. The audience interacted, participated, appreciated and had a rousing good time!

And it struck me that the organizers of the Pole Vault Summit have struck gold!

Rather than restrict this amazing event to the sinking anchor of US track & field, they have declared the event's independence and reconstituted its presentation so that it is inspiring to a new generation of US vaulters and integrated with and suitable to the media that the vaulters use!

How did this happen and where is mainstream media on this opportunity? (I'm guessing you saw nothing about this on the 6 o'clock news).

This happened through the vision of one unselfish man and one institution that was willing to allow him to go do something wonderful! That man is Bob Fraley, world renowned track coach at the institution, Fresno State. Over the past 20+ years, Bob pulled together this activity to the point where it has its own momentum and is a Sport unto itself! Check it out.

The point of all this is that any sport can be reconstituted to inspire the core of its audience in ways that suit and interact with that audience. New media can be at the heart of this, with enabling technologies, distribution and $.

What new media does is make that audience relevant and interesting to sponsors and marketers and as a marketplace, by bringing people together. When knowledgable, dedicated people like Fraley are in charge, they bring out the best in sport and present opportunities that those of us in the marketplace that is new media have been dreaming about!

Now, who is going to bring this type of sports enterprise to the masses? We need a Roone Arledge of new media.

Any takers?

Automated Revenues: Fact or Fiction?

2007-01-16T17:43:00.000-08:00

In the world of internet and content publication and services one hears the term "automated revenues" so often that an analysis is in order.

First, a definition. Revenues is $. Pure and simple, money that comes to you in reward for putting your effort, ideas or ownership to work for someone else. In short, as the reward for transferring what is yours, one receives compensation.

In business, we call the money received revenues. Automated, as intended in the phrase, has a meaning that is just the opposite of effort! In fact, automated means doing something without effort.

When coupled the two words conjure up a picture of obtaining $ without effort. Is that really it? Very close. Automated Revenues is the Internet equivalent of the Fountain of Youth that drove 16th century explorers to the sandy beaches of Florida!

But is there really a reward of money without effort? Fact is, NO. There is significant and substantial effort, just not the usual kind. Bear with me as I explain.

In most businesses, the only way to earn revenues is to make a product or service, sell and market, deliver the product or service to the customer, then collect $ if the customer is satisfied.

In internet automated revenues businesses, software does all of the above. Software makes the product or service, markets it to consumers or businesses who find it on the Web through search or other automated web tools. The product delivery is one hundred % digital, so no human being need be involved in delivery. The money is received through automated transactions if there is a price for the digital goods, or advertising solutions are plugged in if the product is free but supported by ads.

So, the things most businesses are accustomed to doing are done by software systems, hence the term automated. But, there are tasks that must be undertaken...the software must be developed, then maintained. The network and servers must be managed, maintained and upgraded from time to time. The money must be received and anaged and bills paid.

In a well conceived and managed automated revenues business, the time investment can be minimal compared to an ordinary business. In fact, it is possible to run many automated businesses at one time. Many are doing exactly that. There are milions of internet spawned automated businesses that provide all or part of the support for families. And there are large automated businesses that are amazing and growing every day. For example, automation of systems allows Google to have the largest revenue to employee ratio of any company in history.

In a matter of days, any major media site (e.g. ESPN.com, NBA.com, MLB.com, Getty Images etc.) could be transitioned to an automated business with 50% of current staff and revenues per employee far exceeding Google's current $1.5M ratio (note that the Google ratio is much lower than it would be if they were not spending so much on activities unrelated to revenues).

Funny, considering the shareholder activist proposals at YHOO, I would probably just drive that business to a pure automated system and drive the price of the stock up based on a goal of $5M per employee in revenue!

Am I serious? You betcha.

Consider YouTube with 100M videos viewed and just 70 employees or the pre-Fox MySpace run with nothing but geeks (10) and servers.

This is how it gets done today and it is also the reason that private equity $ is flying into Internet companies in spite of the clear knowledge that the days of high flying internet IPOs are over. The fundamentals per classic bricks and mortar, General Motors type analysis are simply too good to ignore!

Much more coming on this subject.

eBay buys StubHub for $310M!

2007-01-10T19:26:00.000-08:00

Hot off the press is the announcement that eBay is paying $310M for StubHub, the online market enabling ticket sales between consumers (some call it scalping!).

This is a natural play for eBay, picking up a company that is well versed in the 'sales enabling technology' space, a company that has been doing quite well.

But it wasn't always easy for a group of really smart guys at StubHub in San Francisco.

The StubHub Founders, especially Jeff Fluhr, CEO, are bright guys who came up with an excellent idea and ran with it. When their first idea (that the Sports rights holders would want to tap into the market and share revenues and drive toward an IPO) failed because the rights holders flubbed the handoff, Fluhr was brilliant in recognizing that he had to change what he was doing and avoid partnerships unless they were on equitable terms with reputable organizations. Otherwise, with the waffling 'partners' who really might prefer he fail (e.g. NHL, MLBAM), Fluhr decided that StubHub would pay the freight for advertising on their sites and keep all revenues from StubHub sales.

In short, StubHub started out with a strategy to provide a service for the obvious beneficiaries (the Sports teams and leagues) with a rev share for successful sales. When the Leagues did not cooperate, Fluhr abandoned the services play even though he was four years into it, and went with an 'in your face' strategy, taking them on in Court (Patriots and Yankees) and paying the freight to get fans to his site to buy and sell tix. Almost immediately the site turned around and started making $. How close was StubHub to being stubbed out? We'll never know the real deal, but it was close enough that employees were jumping ship, including co-founder Baker.

What amazes me is that once again the Leagues and rights holders missed out on an opportunity to build a business with a smart, willing service provider. All they had to do was provide traffic and cooperate in enabling a market that everyone knows exists. They could have shared in ticket sales revenues and gotten big equity kickers in a very big business. Instead they underperformed on obligations where they worked with StubHub and did everything they could to turn the market into one where StubHub competitors like Ticketmaster paid rights fees to play in the rights holder ballparks, the only model that the rights guys seem to be comfortable with although they continue to give lip service to visionaries like Fluhr.

So, they almost killed StubHub, then missed the gravy train and watched as a really smart guy (Fluhr) made it happen anyway! His original strategy should have been a multi-billion dollar play with leagues and teams as partners. Instead, because of stubborn, arrogance born stupidity, he and his investors took 100% of a smaller play and the Leagues and teams got zilch!

Will they ever learn? Unfortunately for the financial stakeholders, it seems the answer is no...

Congratulations to Jeff Fluhr and some really smart advisors, including Steve Young, Dave Checketts, Brian Bedol, Allen & Co. and Frank Biondi.

Sometimes in the Internet it's like a toboggan ride down a steep ski slope. You need to hang on tight for your life while you fly in directions unknown and be willing to crash, then pick up the sled for another ride down!

2006- the Year of UGC- What does it Mean for the Industry?

2007-01-04T08:01:00.000-08:00

UGC- User Generated Content and I promise not to use too many other acronyms!

As you probably know, Time Magazine awarded its "Person of the Year" award to "You" in honor of what You are doing in generating the new Internet Content with User Generated Content. They even put a mirror on the cover so that You can see Yourself!

It is time that this blog address some of the issues raised by UGC and its implications for our digital media industry.

To be the cynic, UGC has been around since Day One of the Internet. I had my first blog when my Windows 95 system made FTP easy and Netscape Navigator Gold put out the first WYSIWYG editor. Not much has changed (technically) since then. The publishing step is easier and you don't need FTP, but you still need an idea and the focus to post it as often as possible and that is the hardest part.

MySpace and You Tube are not the first UGC enablers to hit it rich, either. YHOO bought GeoCities in 1996 for a ton of cash!

The difference is the proliferation of easy publishing tools, services and digital devices to produce content beyond the written word. Yes, cheap digital cameras have made everyone a producer!

While it is easy to understand why so many are producing, it is harder to grasp the reason that people are spending so much time looking at other UGC. The social element of this inserts a business model that formerly did not exist. The big ($60B?) question is whether this is hurting old, produced media (the rights protected versions) and what the Big Boys should do (if anything) as the result of its emergence.

There is a long advocated theory in digital media that there is never an emerging network or channel that is bad for the existing media, that media will consistently expand to fill new opportunities and that old channels will survive. While that sounds like some bullshit coming from the mouths of old media execs trying to save their skins, there is definitely some validity. Television as we know it is not going away. Radio continues to be strong as does in Theater movie entertainment. New Channels mean new outlets and new ways to cross-market as the channels develop. That does not mean that the content businesses that inhabit the old channels will survive. They need to recognize the new opportunities and address them, service their customers wherever they reside and use new media as both new $ opportunities and feeders for old $ plays.

So, UGC is definitely HURTING Old Media because new customers are looking at content Old Media has nothing to do with. It is as though the old media boys are missing out on an entire generation of customers.

Why are they missing out? It is simple....it is because they are fighting the new channel and its fundamentals. In short, people want to see lots of content, see it where they want it, how they want it without paying for it. Rather than riding this roaring current, old media is fighting the rip and while they are not drowning due to the continued vitality of the old channels, they are not participants in the new media play. Worse, they are allowing the biggest disruptive strategy in business history to take a stranglehold around their throats.

If you have read this blog before, you know that I believe that success in the media business is all about disruptive strategies. The old media boys have set themselves up for disruption and if there is a danger that UGC brings it is this. The next play for UGC is the living room and the television set. Interactive TV will mean UGC and free content on the TV and the rights boys are likely to be found with their pants down again.

What should they do? Forget the fight. It is lost. UGC is here. So, instead of fighting a losing fight, ride the big wave....put every bit of image and clip content you possibly can into the UGC world for syndication to any site that wants it (hire 50+ UGC editors to do nothing but put your content into this world). Use YouTube and MySpace as marketing vehicles for going to movies and games, watching shows and games on television and getting consumers to buy rights to better content online. And One last thing....wake up to the fact that users have huge systems that can embrace significant applications. Capture the ardent fan and his or her system with a proprietary client that DELIVERS your amazing content to the desktop along with your ads and upsells! And, help the fan create their own UGC relevant to your content and post it to your environment so that they STAY HOME with you.

Yep, use UGC to create the means by which you acquire and strengthen customers, make $ and siphon the UGC enthusiasm into your world. In short, develop and execute a strategy to disrupt and bypass the biggest disruptor in history- Google!

More to come....

Liberty Out Foxes Murdoch

2006-12-22T11:06:00.000-08:00

Rupert Murdoch (L) and John Malone (R); Photo Credits: Getty Images

If you watched the machinations between Rupert Murdoch and John Malone over the recent months you may have been puzzled about why the big fuss. In fact, this amazing game of chess continues in spite of the announced settlement. My take is that Murdoch is being schooled by someone a bit smarter playing a long term game with a fist full of Aces. Murdoch is so tired of this game and so focused on the NewsCorp succession that he may have delivered too much NewsCorp value to Malone, even at the stated price tag of $11B.

To review, Malone, via Liberty Media, had accumulated a very nice position in News Corp. stock, almost 20%, or enough to be able to force Murdoch's hand on many issues, including his planned annointment of a son as successor. In Murdoch's self-centered view, the succession was all that mattered and he lost sight of the value of the Digital TV assets he transferred. Good thing for NewsCorp shareholders that Malone was not after access to the amazing News Corp content assets (Fox, Fox Digital, 20th Century Fox, BSkyB, Star, and MySpace). Or at least the announcement makes us think those remain untouched... Speculation is that once the dust settles, we may see that Malone has some very valuable DTV distribution rights to much of the NewsCorp content.

To Murdoch's one track mind, buying Malone's accumulated $11B News Corp stake for DirectTV stock, $550M in cash and three Fox Sports networks that were outside the NewsCorp focus areas seems a small price to pay to be rid of a very real headache in the succession process. For him it is a no-brainer.

So, a fight over the control of NewsCorp's destiny is avoided and an amicable settlement preserves what remains of the relationship between old friends? That's what the NY based media folks (WSJ, Times) are swallowing.

An even swap they say, done for tax reasons! Believe that? Not on your life!

This deal is the worst of several ridiculously incompetent moves made by Murdoch in proving that time has passed him by. From the post acquisition mismanagement of MySpace (particularly the failure to acquire any benefits from helping launch YouTube!) to the Judith Regan fiasco, Murdoch has been bungling.

Why is the Malone deal so bad? Because Murdoch, for the sole purpose of preserving the NewsCorp crown for a group of unworthy princes (James, Lachlan, et.al.) all but removed NewsCorp from its once articulated play of being an operating systems provider to the emerging digital television world.

For the last ten years Malone has been maneuvering for every piece of digital TV IP he can acquire, aggregating it all in subsidiaries of Liberty Media. But this very successful aggregation of IP was stymied by a lack of content and a controlled network that would allow the Liberty DTV software solutions to develop.

By tweaking the unrivalled Murdoch ego with the acquisition of stock that might stop him from annointing one of his sons as the future NewsCorp king and getting the expected ego driven reaction, Malone got what he needed! He rented some NewsCorp stock for a few months, threatened his rival and walked away with the keys to the Digital TV vault!

What did Liberty get in this stock swap? Insiders say that, in addition to the DirectTV stock, local sports networks and cash, Malone got a license to some very valuable IP in the NewsCorp Israeli subsidiary, NDS (News Data Systems) and a captured customer licensee (content and networks) when Liberty is ready to release its DTV software as Operating System for the DirectTV and Fox Regional Sports Networks! We'll see when the docs are filed unless they make the absurd argument that the cross licenses are not material.

With this deal, Malone emerges as the one true competitor to Microsoft in the DTV software space. With the related content license, he will also be able to reverse engineer his way into web solutions, likely through a MySpace DTV portal.

An amazing deal! Let's watch the filings and activities in the Fox world to see just how good it is for Liberty and bad for NewsCorp.

Google Checkout: Just How Big?

2006-12-20T07:53:00.000-08:00

Harvard's Clayton Christensen is the brains behind Google's disruptive plans for e-Commerce (Photo Credit: Forbes.com)

With the marketing launch of its Checkout product, Google has officially entered its second line of business. Though interrelated with the ads biz (the merchant user class of Checkout customers are also the biggest buyers of Adwords), make no mistake- this is different and this is big...no, make that HUGE.

Again, Google attacks a huge market with a classic disruptive strategy- taking the business that the big players ignore because it is difficult or conceptually small, then applying resources and an understanding of technology and directions to go big and take on the bigger players from below.

The technorati media hype about this has Google going after the PayPal boys with this business. I would submit that while PayPal is a target, eventually, the market is far bigger and more meaningful than that. This business is all about going after the cash register in your local store! The full integration of e-commerce with commerce. Google will make even the most ardent anti-tech people into significant participants in the new media economy just by doing what they already do every day.

When you shop at the local store and go through the checkout line, your transaction will go through Google servers, payments will process through Google bank accounts. Google will take a transaction fee.

Are they replacing Visa, MasterCard and American Express? Not yet, but they are the long term target. In fact, in the near term those businesses will prosper because of the ease the new buisness brings to commerce. But, litle by little, Google will move up the value chain....

In the short term Google is actually filling a gap that has long been a well known opportunity, offering an easy way to process payments to merchants selling to online customers AND and cheaper and easier way for bricks and mortar merchants to process credit cards. Google's plan is to offer an easier way to process all commercial transactions with web based technologies.

They are not the first to try this. CyberSource has been around for years and VeriSign has long held designs in this area. Even Microsoft has made a pass at this sector. The difference is that Google is giving real merchants a reason to adopt their system- discounts and advantages on promotions by tying the Adwords business to Checkout. Simple and brilliant. Almost as good as selling keywords.

The amazing thing is that once again, Google is not first mover. Just as in the case of Yahoo! and Overture, CyberSource is there first with technologies and systems. PayPal and Verisign may have some IP as well. But just as with the search keyword ad business, Google will steamroll its opposition and pay them big later in settling any IP lawsuits.

Someone (Yahoo! or AOL or Fox or a PE player like Elevation) should take out CyberSource now because Google will be paying them lots later.

Next up- how the Content Rights Players can leverage Google (Checkout, Adwords and Adsense) and win big quickly.

2006-12-18T20:12:00.000-08:00

Apple, iTunes & the "Piggyback" Players

2006-12-15T05:33:00.000-08:00

Steve Jobs introduces new iPod (Getty Images)

When Apple launched iTunes >2 yrs ago, Steve Jobs got hyped again as the risk taking visionary who would save the record industry amid a world gone crazy with content theft as an accepted way of life for the generation born after 1985. Little did we suspect the real strategy (confirmed this week by the actual iPod usage #s)- Apple is just the latest and best of the 'piggyback' players who make real money enabling, enhancing and capitalizing on content theft while paying lip service to providing artists with a path to $.

In fact, based on released data, what Apple has actually done is extend and expand the acceptance of content theft to other generations of computer users (I wonder how President Bush got the tunes on his iPod- if the twins loaded it for him, I think we know...) making a fortune in the process and moving the theft environment from the computer where it was a bit 'clodgy' to the iPod where the many millions are thrilled to play their stolen tunes.

In case you were sleeping, Apple has saved its hide with a classic 'sell razor blades cheap' to enable sales of high margin 'razors' strategy. The great part of the Apple strategy is that they did not have to really go very far in the business of razor blades (iTunes) because free razor blades are so readily available on the Net.

The released data- the average iPod houses only 20 iTunes purchased releases! People are flocking to buy millions of iPods and getting their content elsewhere for free. Meanwhile CD sales are down, quality of new recordings is down (Taylor Hicks is an icon!) and the real musicians (Stones, Springsteen, Greenday, U2) are making most of their $ touring!

What Jobs has actually accomplished is making Apple the biggest winner in the 'Piggyback' space. He has climbed onto the backs of the musicians under false premises and is letting them save his company willingly while they tout him as the next coming. Crazy? Not at all- the music industry has never set its sights on the 'piggyback' enablers (AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Google...) choosing instead to try to control consumer behavior in the face of the continuing proliferation of tools and strategies that encourage exactly what is killing them! So they sue kids and destroy Napster, Bit Torrent and others who have never made a penny from their rights while they let the real profiteers move right ahead, killing individual artists in the process.

Bruce Sprinsteen and Bono beg Jobs to let them promote iPods and iTunes for free and PDiddy sits on stage with Terry Semel (Yahoo!) and AOL's Jon Miller (NBA Tech Summit, 2003) "trying to solve the problem" while they have their hands in his pockets!

This is an amazing, willing transfer of wealth from the artists to the internet media companies. Why? Because the labels and rights holders are conflicted. They are better off in the long run if the new channels succeed. They make long term deals to share 'piggyback' wealth with the new channels in ways that do not reward the artists (M&A, investment, etc.). In effect, they 'climb aboard' with the piggybackers whle the artists trudge along because the hype about chasing Bit Torrent and Napster creates the false impression that the rights guys are doing something to protect artist rights!

What should artists do? Not everyone can create their own direct to consumer system like the touring Stones and Bono have done. The answer is clear but the path uncertain. The envronment is screaming for a new kind of rights player. For a minute it looked like Elevation was the team (Quadrangle before them), but they got lured into the quick wealth of playing the market with the piggybackers.

Someone will sense the oppty and put 5-10B in place and put a real rights enhancement system in place with toll booths on both the free and paid internet using systems that exist... this is screaming for a Mark McCormack type person to step forward and 'just do it'... mmmm let's see, if you bought Artists Direct, let Williams & Connolly be an investor, then set up a protective investment pool for artists and their unions and engaged the piggybackers in a very real 'come to Jesus' discussion....

Just dreamin?

We'll see.

MLBAM IPO?

2006-12-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

Bob Dupuy, Deputy Commissioner, MLB (Getty Images)

Word is out that MLBAM (Major League Baseball Advanced Media) is considering an IPO to hit the streets sometime during Major League Baseball's Spring Training. No less a luminary than Harvard's distinguished Clayton Christensen is touting the MLBAM plan (see Forbes article).

If you have followed this, you know that MLB had hired Morgan Stanley back in 2000, just before the bubble burst, to explore how they might cash in on the combined weight of MLB brands and the potential for an internet bonanza. Current Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh was in charge of promoting the idea at Morgan. And MLB was not alone. NBA was working with JP Morgan at the same time on their own IPO plan for NBA Entertainment before agreeing to join up with Intel in the ill-fated Convera play (more on NBA and NFL later this week).

So, what is MLBAM doing and will it work and will the rewards be anything like the $2B value Christensen and the NY Times are pointing toward?

MLBAM is the brainchild of Bob DuPuy, baseball's 2nd in command. In 2000, with strong pushes from Southwest Sports and Tom Hicks, all MLB teams except the Yankees voted to put their internet assets into MLBAM. The teams dumped some meaningful cash into the startup, estimated at $40M to start (and supplemented since then). The Yankess opposed the idea because they wanted their Web assets to be part of their YES subsidiary, a network with its own IPO plans. Because MLB always moves forward as a group, the Yanks were forced to put their valuable assets into the MLBAM plan, but the Steinbrenner boys negotiated some very tough restrictions on how the content might be used.

Though MLB is very tight lipped about these facts, rumor has it that the teams' commitment was not open ended but for 10 years, expiring in 2010 and that after that they are free to go their own way. How MLBAM uses the upside of its possible IPO to get the Yanks and others to go along with a greater freedom for content deployment on the Web will ultimately determine the success of this offering.

When it launched, MLBAM was given a reaonable 10 yrs to succeed. Like any internet media startup from that era, they struggled through the first half of that decade, particularly since their strategy for selling subscriptions to internet media content proved to be a big bust.

Then just what is the $250M in revenues that serves as the backbone of the proposed IPO? The breakout for MLBAM has been ecommerce sales and ticket revenues. Once they proved enormously efficient at selling goods and tix, they had a real play. Combined with a best of breed technology service that they are now offering outside the MLB environment (NCAA to start), you start to see a real business.

With the stock market once again receptive to Internet service companies and a real chance that this IPO could drive very real value, don't doubt that MLB's teams will line up for another ten years to make this thing fly! Even the Yankees will understand that value, especially since their own YES deal is achieving tremendous traction as a Cable network and no longer needs the baseball internet rights.

MLBAM CEO Bob Bowman has put together a first rate team, a kick ass web site and has driven an amazing ecommerce story. Now MLB needs to take off the rights reins and let Bowman run hard with a content syndication strategy that will not only drive advertising revenues at least equal to ecommerce$, but will create the marketing engine that MLB needs to regain its place as the #1 sport. Effective use of MLBAM around the 2006 World Series could have avoided the tragic ratings...

If MLB does not give Bowman that kind of freedom then be careful with any MLBAM IPO stock. Don't fall for the mirage of the low margin ticket and ecommerce revenues if the upside is constrained by ill-considered content strategies.

The only thng that will stop MLBAM's success is the MLB teams! As always, Major League Baseball manages to put absurdity front and center!

Is Winer just Whining or is he right on the Demise of Web 2.0 (and Google)

2006-12-07T06:14:00.000-08:00

Google's Founders, Brin and Page, not likely concerned about Dave Winer's view (Getty Images)

If you know who Dave Winer is (basically the first implementer of many great things web including RSS & Blogs), you have to take notice when he says that Google is going to come crashing down on the house of cards that is Web 2.0 (See NY Times Biz Section, Sunday, Dec. 3).

First, who the hell is Dave? Second, what exactly does he mean? Then we can assess...

Winer has been at the center of the internet from Day 1. He has built busineses, deployed new solutions and been a stellar commentator on the evolution of this new environment. Visionary is an understatement. Unfortunately for Dave, however, he has never been where the cash spigot is streaming, so, unlike his brethren- Filo & Yang, Brin and Page, Andreesen, Homer & Barksdale, he has not had the big liquidity event. He is more in the category of Internet do-gooder like Tim Berners-Lee.

So, when he says Google is going to crash, we probably do not need to suspect him as a short player; there is likely some strong basis for his prediction.

What is it? Well, I think it works like this- Web 2.0 is a whole series of bloggers and content thieves who do not have any real cash investment behind them; they come with bootstraps and put their content on MySpace, Flickr, Facebook, Blogspot (like me) and other places where posting is easy and tech smarts not required. Some make $ from ads from automated ad providers, of which Google is far and away the dominant provider. The small rev stream these ads provide the average Web 2.0 content folks is enough to keep them coming back and posting more and more content, in many cases. The rest of us are just crazy and think someone out there might care about what we have to say.

Winer's point is that if you look at the Qs and Ks, Google's growth is coming to a large degree from its Adsense biz and the Adsense biz has its base in Web 2.0. Since the vitality of Web 2.0 is dependent on the Web 2.0 content providers showing up and putting up new content, regularly, if those guys get bored or get a job or just take a few days off, it could have an impact on Google's Adsense revenues. In fact, if they organized and boycotted Google, it could be ugly (are there any other $ options for these guys- not yet- come on Yahoo!- see yesterday's Kiles Blog).

If you are Google, how do you deal with this Web 2.0 Armageddon? Not so esay, but there are options-
1. Buy/hire everybody (AOL tried that with Weblogs, Inc. and six months after the huge announcement Jason Calcanis was gone); or at least the best of the lot; but that makes them a content company, something they have tried to avoid...
2. Increase Adsense payments so that there is a real living to be had- focus on driving traffic and making tools for blogger success. (They are actually trying to help here, but probably need to do more).
3. Spur investment in the Blogosphere- the easiest course of action, an Intel Capital type play (purposely put 'dumb' money in bad deals that support you strategically). Hype the investments that best support Google revenues and give the bloggers hope. This could be the most interesting, successful strategy, but could be costly and embarrassing- how do you control what the blogosphere says!

All in all, maybe the best Google play is to ignore the Whiners of the world, let Web 2.0 come crashing down and, assuming the unlikely scenario that it does, be there with best of breed technology at the center of the next universe.

If there is one thing consistent about the internet, it is that the smart guys always win.

I'm betting on Google. Dave Winer's perspective is interesting but Google is in control and a Web 2.0 crash would be nothing more than a speed bump. In fact, the best of breed will survive and consistent with Google's Christensen based "Disruptive Plan", by the time it does, they will be so far up the food chain (radio, TV, classifieds, media sites) with their Ads, they will never notice that there was a demise and Web 2.0's crash will be nothing more than a footnote to history, if that.

Advice for Terry Semel

2006-12-05T18:42:00.000-08:00

Making sure he listens to Kiles? Not Likely! Yahoo!'s Terry Semel. (Getty Images)

Why is Yahoo! flagging so badly, losing traction in ad revenues during a legitimate advertising boom?

Just today they announced a reorg in the face of falling stock price and (apparently) a completely blown opportunity with their Overture assets. CFO Susan Decker is now in charge of online ad sales in addition to marshalling the books.

Honestly, things do not look good. Yahoo!, just 2 years ago everyone's darling after a few years of buckling down and becoming an internet media engine while parlaying an IP lawsuit with Google into billions, is now viewed as a Company that simply missed it, heading toward the door with AOL.

What happened and what can they do about it?

What happened can and does happen to everyone- they did not see a tsunami- the social networking wave was huge and they missed it, losing out completely as portal to the MySpace generation. YHOO had neither the tools to manage content (Google was already the search engine of choice) or the focus on self aggrandizement the new "me" generation looks for with MySpace and YouTube or the autommated ad system to capitalize. In short- they missed an opportunity because they were not prepared!

Now it's time to watch their reaction and see what they do about it. They are under immense pressure to respond with a social solution of their own, take on MySpace...My take is that they have already missed that ship and that they should stay the course.

If they cannot compete with Google in technology and have lost the social space to MySpace, what do they do to compete?

Yhoo must make a play now to become a significant media company, internet rights holder and manager of important content. They should take a hard look at the CEO and ask what does this guy know anything about?

Bing! You got it! Terry Semel is a studio genius! He knows how to build a studio from the financial perspective and attract the very best to his world. He has bright guys working with him. Now they need a real internet content guy. Not Lloyd Braun, but a real Valley guy that knows media and technology; someone who can create a system for churning out compelling content for the internet environment and start pouring it into the Yahoo! distribution monster. Roger MacNamee or someone like him (Geoff Yang?)

Forget about Hollywood- focus is still the Movies and TV and will always be. Yahoo needs internet content and that happens in their backyard. They need to be the home of massively multi-player games and interactive images and video. They should open the doors and create opportunity for the publishing community to create and make $. Make tools for creating, engineers for refining, systems for hosting, offer customers for distribution and ad systems for $. Make it generally available to anyone for free in exchange for content rights of well developed content. But insist on quality!

Find the developers on MySpace, YouTube and Facebook and bring them to Yahoo! Make their lives so easy that they can succeed if they just create content! Yhoo does the rest! Invest $10B in internet content over the next 5 yrs! Not in purchasing rights but in delivering the systems required to create...

I ask you Terry Semel, is that much different than what you made happen so successfuly at Warner? Do what you know how to do and do it well!

Go out and do something wonderful! Now is the time!

Why do the major rights holders miss every dotcom opportunity?

2006-11-29T08:53:00.000-08:00

NBA Commissioner David Stern Testifies before Congress about steroids (Getty Images)

You see it over and over- a new tech service comes to market with a great idea on distributing content to consumers (Yahoo!, Real, Napster, Google, Tivo, Bit Torrent, YouTube...). The content rights holders hold back from the service attempting to impose their traditional market metrics (big cash up front) on the new service. Consumers hijack the content anyway and put it into the new service. The rights holders scream and hire lawyers. If the service acquiesces and does business the way the rights guys want (RealOne, Napster, Bit Torrent(tbd)...) the service dies, the rights guys win the near term battle.

With the smarter players, the rights issues are somewhat subtle and often involve the creation of a "piggyback" service unique to digital media (Yahoo!, Google, AOL, iTunes, Tivo). On unfamiliar turf, the rights holders shake their heads and put their hands out, begging for a morsel! The tech services laugh, having created a service that people love, with or without the rights holder content! They send over a few bucks, but, their lifeline in no way dependent on the rights holders, they forge ahead with public market strategies that realize real value that could easily have belonged in part to the rights guys. What they fail to do is analyze the situation and act in their own best long term interst- the success of new channels and the realization of shared value!

Think I'm crazy? Consider this- who made out the best in the Google IPO (other than the VCs and founders)? If you are thinking Yahoo! you are right- they got more than $1B in value by asserting their "rights" in a way that did not threaten the life of Google, just made clear that where YHOO IP created value, they should get to share in that value! This is a concept that is lost on the NY/LA media guys, all of whom think their universe wll be king, failing to understand the need to PARTICIPATE in the Webocracy to win big. Yahoo! got it because they have smart guys on their Board!

Want to see a disaster in failed web strategies? Look at the web sites of any of the major rights guys (NFL.com, NBA.com, all the TV shows and movies, the record guys (though they are more advanced now out of necessity), MLB.com and so on). Every one of them has the same strategy they launched with ten years ago. In every case, they have failed to realize the potential upside that their content naturally brings because they think the computer is a TV and they want to be the portal for their own customers! The essence of the failure is that they lock down their content on their sites, force consumers to go there to get the content and ignore consumers who don't get there! In short, they are all trying to be Portals, but failing because they ARE NOT INTEGRATED WITH THE WEB!

What should they be doing? It is very simple- just go look at the success stories on the web and EMULATE! Every rights web site should be a syndication portal first and foremost. Give consumers and webmasters all the content they can possibly want- especially stats, images and short clips- to post anywhere they want any how they want. The goal of the syndication is eyeballs first, ad revenue second, right fees much later on, after the channels have been created (pull out the old playbook and follow the ESPN play!). After syndication is firmly in place, with broad distribution and availability of content, then you can return the focus to building nice proprietary web sites, the singular purpose strategy employed all these years!

When you have a treasure trove of content, you can analyze how to use it to meet all of your goals. The issue is understanding what those goals should be and being able to act in your own interest, something that the old guys in new media fail at every time because they are so locked into their application of TV strategies to the internet.

Ads, Spyware and Adware Directions

2006-11-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

Ever since Google announced that they would NEVER put ads on the same page as search results (1999) and then proceeded to build the biggest business in Internet history based on doing exactly that, the world of digital ads has been something we need to look at daily with fresh perspective. Yesterday's view of the way things are or should be has no validity.

So, given the proposition that what I say here will be wrong by tomorrow, where are we today? What's important, where are the opportunities, what are consumers doing?

Let's start with the last query- what are consumers doing? Contrary to the view of Google's founders, the Trust-e compliance boys and FTC, most consumers consider advertising to be the price of great software and content. If you hear a complaint, it usually indicates that the consumer did not get enough to justify the ads! Of course noone wants software installed on their system without permission and the industry is fast moving away from that (recent FTC settlement with Zango is illustrative) and Spyware is an unacceptable invasion of privacy that is in fact, a violation of the law.

But what about adware that is installed with permission? Where the ads being served have real value based on contextual and behavioral technologies. It does not violate the law...so why does the real government (US and States) and Internet government (Google) hate it so?

The Google answer is easy- they plan to launch a business in that space and want to slow the industry movers in advance of their own initiative. And the Government....well, there are no laws against adware 'per se', just installation without permission or use of private information...but the FTC and NY Atty General's Office have both indicated that they wish they had the authority to prosecute adware providers. It's a classic case of overzealous, underemployed lawyers looking for an issue to make themselves famous without regard for consequences.

So, in today's world, adware purveyors need to be extra careful and that is no guarantee that they won't get caught in the wringer. And tomorrow? There will be adware everywhere, integrated into every application with software monitors that make certain that the value of ads displayed does not exceed the stated value of the software or content the consumer receives.

How will this be done? Intel should do it with its position as the trusted third party (the technology has been in their house since the mid-90s). But, since Intel has never seen an internet market it can time right, better to license the software to someone else, build the capability into the chips (this is what the Trusted Computer Platform initiative was supposed to do) and help this market continue to mature.

Much more on this issue to come!

Is it YouTube or Flash? What's next?

2006-11-19T11:57:00.000-08:00

For the last few weeks, everyone has been talking about YouTube and its acquisition by Google for a cool $1.65B. The most common question from industry outsiders is "how could YouTube be worth it". That's easy and I'll address that first. The more interesting question in my view is whether the thing that made users go to YouTube in the first place was the content and Web 2.0 presentation or Adobe's Flash software that made it so easy on users AND what the answer to that question might mean for the industry.

So, first the valuation. Just do the math- with the metadata YouTube collects the value of Google Ads on 1,ooo YouTube pages is about $2.50. If they show 100M videos a day as reported, Google can move in right away for $250K/day; over a year that's close to $100M with no additional traffic direction or ad optimization. Since Google can absorb the entire operation with no additional impact on their budgets, all revenue is accretive. At a conservative 15:1 earnings multiple, you get to $1.5B pretty easily; take it to internet type 50:1 multiples and you get a picture of the upside for Google.

Now the real question: why is YouTube a killer service? Is it the Web 2.0 video implementaion (and enabling the theft of rights holder content) or implementing Adobe software so effectively that users get the holy grail- seamless video!

If you know me, you know I like to take the contrarian viewpoint! While Web 2.0 is cool and the social elements are lots of fun, my view is that Web 2.0 and the over hyped rights issues are a sideshow. It's this simple: people love the presentation; YouTube delivered on a long sought after premise- video displayed in the browser with no additional application launch! YouTube's value to users is in the implementation of Flash! The amazing thing is that they own nothing! Not the content, not the technology! They are a pure portal play....

So, what's next! I say watch the real winner here- Adobe. With the brilliant acquisition of Macromedia and its stellar Flash browser plugin, they are positioned with the best implemenation of the "give it all away free and get 'em addicted" strategy since your local dope dealer, or Intel in the late 1980's. Oh, and isn't it funny how Intel's long time SVP of Advertising and Marketing, Anne Lewnes, slipped quietly in the side door at Adobe (now "CMO")...what better way to capitalize on a strategy developed at Intel than to hire the person who implemented most of the killer marketing strategies based on the dope dealer analogy!

And here's the long shot- Google will make a play for Adobe or run the risk of losing their position as the #1 alternative to MS on the consumer desktop. And this time it will be a $50B+ play that will stun us all...more to come.

Private Equtiy & Digital Media

2006-11-17T07:39:00.000-08:00

Why are so many Media Companies going private? Does this mean the public market is missing the value or that the Media Companies can't get IT done with public oversight?

Check it out- Clear Channel, Tribune, Readers Digest and more...just to mention the most recent...

What I see is a group of companies and rights holders taking a media market approach guided by public stock bricks & mortar analysis (P/E ratios, asset/share valuations, etc.), something that forces old media companies that should be aggressive about the new wave of digital advertising and total market shift to a comprehensive digital media approach to stay put and fail with traditional strategies in shrinking markets. They are all getting eaten alive by Google and can't move quickly enough to fight back or figure out how to ride this tsunami.

What to do? Get out, fix things then come back and sell at a huge premium. This is a no-brainer. It is going to happen again and again until the entire digital media industry remakes itself!

And watch for some others to follow suit, old line tech companies now locked into 'value' stock straight jackets- Intel? MSFT? Too big? Don't bet on it...this wave is betting bigger and the private equity guys have the powder!

Quincy Smith- now that's the way you do it!

2006-11-16T19:11:00.000-08:00

CBS quietly hired Allen & Company's Quincy Smith the other day and put him completely in charge of interactive across all CBS entities! Quincy is a guy with Cred on both coasts, works equally well with marketers and engineers and likes email better than the phone!

Contrast that with ex-technology company AOL's hiring Randy Falco of NBC. This guy worked with Dick Ebersol who admits that he does not know how to use a computer! Unbelievable.

With the close relationship between CBS and Viacom, see how long it takes for Q to get the oldtimers at Viacom to open the vault and put content everywhere in an ad supported model and (combined?) become the most important content company in the world.

Alliance with Google is already underway. Next up- Sports! Interactive rights will be segmented away from TV rights and revenue models will range from PPV and subscription to free and ad supported, but watch mostly for the proliferation of content to new web 2.0 companies in exchange for equity.

A Good Friend Gets the Axe

2006-11-16T19:00:00.000-08:00

Jon Miller was held back by a lack of vision on the Time Warner side of AOL. His replacement, a television guy, will be much more comfortable toeing the line. (Getty Images)

Big news in NY today was AOL's replacement of Jon Miller with Randy Falco.

Jon is a good guy, someone who listens and manages through consensus. Unfortunately, that is not what AOL needed. They needed someone to come in with their own plan to fix a sinking ship...Jon had no plan, trying to fix leaks when he needed to build a new ship.

The real oppty, mostly gone now, was to leverage AOL's trusted ecommerce relationship with 35M people and build a business as the transaction center, toll booth of the web. They might still do this, but only have 18M left after Jon's days.

It will be interesting to see what changes are made, if a real plan gets developed or if, as I suspect, there will be more of the same- bailing water from a sinking ship...

Meanwhile, Jon Miller is the ultimate team player and he will move on to something nice, build from within as he does so well. He will also get to spend time with his family, which is good, all good!

Best to you JM.