Economic innovation for a bright new world
Bye bye Time Warner OnDemand
Thursday - October 20, 2011.
In an age when time shifting of media is crucial in achieving mass consumption, Time Warner has regressed to bow down to its advertisers by disabling fast-forward in its OnDemand recorded TV programming. I refuse to spend 20 minutes of one hour of TV programming wasted to advertisements. So long On Demand.
Oprah Masterclass; Higher Education bubble
Monday - April 11, 2011.
- Every entrepreneur should watch Oprah's Masterclass where she describes her rise
from suppression in a way every entrepreneur will. Follow your heart and authentic passion, and ignore prejudice and precedents (my words). [Links: Oprah
] - Peter Thiel (PayPal co-founder, hedge fund manager and venture capitalist) says what I believed for a long time. Higher education is in a bubble, and business gives too many free passes in life to students who don't deserve (just yet) such real world credentials. I have never hired on academic credentials in startups, only on passion, desire and ability to execute. Being a judge on the Venture Capital competition (VCIC) underscored the fact academic credentials in Finance represent an even bigger bubble. Few MBA's wanting to become VCs are taught or understand that you cannot put a valuation on a company when you don't know the business and its conversion rates. Hats off Peter. [Links: TechCrunch
, VCIC
]
TV is dead
Tuesday - March 22, 2011.
Read the complete article...
Newspapers are reborn
Friday - February 18, 2011.
- Pay attention to Paper.li from Swiss private company Small Rivers proving that online newspapers are not dead just yet. We have recently seen a disproportionate uptick of traffic coming from their site to ours. With Paper.li
everyone can create their own newspaper, composed of RSS and social media feeds in the same way many traditional news sources would pluck from Reuters and the Associated Press. Newspapers are alive and well if you trust the collectors as much as the creators of news.
New Whole Home Time-Warner DVR
Monday - February 14, 2011.
- Rumored for a while by its technicians but whole house DVR’s are now available from Time Warner. Watch in one room, continue in the other will be a favorite in our household. Some nice changes on the broadband Internet side are on the docket too. Do you hear me now Comcast, with your empty 3-year old promise of a Comcast Tivo box?
Why Comcast still does not deserve my triple play
Thursday - February 19, 2009.
If you can’t service one single offering well, don’t expect to sell three...Read the complete article...
Innovating back to the future
Thursday - January 22, 2009.
Read the complete article...
Educating pictures
Sunday - November 09, 2008.
, the creator of some very creative photo-projects, such as From Alice to Ocean, America 24/7, Blue Planet Run and his latest America At Home
. Since the early 90s, From Alice to Ocean stuck with me when it was first introduced and distributed with Apple computers and the clever use of multimedia capabilities built into the Mac early on. But the great thing about these projects is not just the stunning imagery but rather what they evoke. Again, the value of photography is in the eye of the beholder. Rick approaches photography in the same way I look at business; by simply surfacing the facts. So much in our lives is influenced by mountains of politics and rhetoric that reduce the chance of quick resolution and success. How do you think we can ensure a vibrant global economy and peace if 1.1 Billion people - 1 in every 6 - worldwide have no access to clean water. The book Blue Planet Run displays that with chilling accuracy.
But Rick Smolan's projects shed light on reality, good and bad. America at Home is a compelling compilation of how American families live at home, rich and poor, photographed by the families themselves and complemented by photographs from professional photographers. The pictures and their captions are so inspiring that a country decided to buy more than 200,000 books to educate their children on who Americans really are. Transparency works both ways.
I would like to see Rick do a book of “The World at Home”, so I can continue to sit down with my daughter and give her a peek into the living rooms across the world.
Our welfare greatly depends on our ability to become a citizen of this world. To achieve that every school should at least purchase one of Ricks books so our children receive an objective view of the opportunities and problems in our global eco-system and thrive.
Demise of image Super-Stores continues
Friday - October 24, 2008.
Digital Railroad in trouble?
Monday - October 20, 2008.
Read the complete article...
Photoshelter, another one bites the dust
Saturday - September 13, 2008.
Read the complete article...
The remarkable resemblance between innovation and photography
Tuesday - June 17, 2008.
Read the complete article...
Why Amazon is not a marketplace
Monday - March 17, 2008.
Read the complete article...
Getty Images sold for $2.1B; did Grandpa posthumously bail them out?
Monday - February 25, 2008.
Getty-Images pulled it off as we indicated would happen, and sold itself to private equity group Hellman & Friedman LLC in San Francisco (and the "network of the private equity group" which apparently includes the Getty empire) for a little over 2x revenues, assuming also an additional $300M in debt. Someone clearly felt that was an accurate price for its organic growth business: "Wall Street was paying more attention to the stagnating core business than to its emerging segments."
Indeed, non-organic growth is hardly ever a sustainable endeavor, lacks core competency and focus and often hides many skeletons in the closet. Now the fun part of discovering its real value starts, although the company does not forecast a lot of changes according to this interview with Jonathan Klein, Getty-Images' CEO and PDN. We could suggest a few fundamental changes along the lines of my blogs and then some.
But anyway you cut it, this will turn out to be good for photographers and the market. New competitors will spring up and VCs will now perhaps see the value in supporting imaging marketplaces. So for that, we need to congratulate Getty-Images.
itself to private equity group Hellman & Friedman LLC in San Francisco (and the "network of the private equity group" which apparently includes the Getty empire) for a little over 2x revenues, assuming also an additional $300M in debt. Someone clearly felt that was an accurate price for its organic growth business: "Wall Street was paying more attention to the stagnating core business than to its emerging segments." Indeed, non-organic growth is hardly ever a sustainable endeavor, lacks core competency and focus and often hides many skeletons in the closet. Now the fun part of discovering its real value starts, although the company does not forecast a lot of changes according to this interview with Jonathan Klein, Getty-Images' CEO and PDN
. We could suggest a few fundamental changes along the lines of my blogs and then some. But anyway you cut it, this will turn out to be good for photographers and the market. New competitors will spring up and VCs will now perhaps see the value in supporting imaging marketplaces. So for that, we need to congratulate Getty-Images.
Loving Apple TV even more
Sunday - February 24, 2008.
Read the complete article...
Getty-Images: Q4FY07 Earnings call fog
Thursday - February 14, 2008.
We could debunk every statement Getty-Images made in its recent earnings call but we've essentially done so in our extensive blogs about the company. Apart from the negative outcome of the call, we instead want to highlight the systemic attitudinal problem of the company.
First off, Getty's success is based on the fact that it believes it can predict how images (or other media assets) are going to be used by the buyer. It continuously re-purposes images and image rights to meet a supposed buying trends it is never going to be able to predict. With massive changes in photography Getty has frequently trailed trends rather than enabled them. The usage of the image should be determined between seller and buyer, with Getty's infrastructure merely supporting that transaction.
Second, the usage and type classification in the earnings call is the kind of double dipping I've seen many companies in trouble do. There is a dramatic overlap between editorial, creative, rights managed, royalty free, royalty ready and a myriad of other popular image definitions. The sole metric of success for the company is number of images sold at what ASP, and at what cost. No Wall-Street investor will be able to make sense of the fog Getty has put up in the conference call to hide the fact that organic growth is miserable.
Third, Getty arrogantly describes their (lackluster) performance as the market trend, as if they are the market. No, Getty, the market of image usage is actually growing faster than you are able to support. The real news is that Getty is losing market-share.
The lack of transparency makes Getty-Images an un-investable business, both from a market and acquisition perspective. The bottom line from the call simply confirms that, forget about everything in-between.
but we've essentially done so in our extensive blogs about the company. Apart from the negative outcome of the call, we instead want to highlight the systemic attitudinal problem of the company. First off, Getty's success is based on the fact that it believes it can predict how images (or other media assets) are going to be used by the buyer. It continuously re-purposes images and image rights to meet a supposed buying trends it is never going to be able to predict. With massive changes in photography Getty has frequently trailed trends rather than enabled them. The usage of the image should be determined between seller and buyer, with Getty's infrastructure merely supporting that transaction.
Second, the usage and type classification in the earnings call is the kind of double dipping I've seen many companies in trouble do. There is a dramatic overlap between editorial, creative, rights managed, royalty free, royalty ready and a myriad of other popular image definitions. The sole metric of success for the company is number of images sold at what ASP, and at what cost. No Wall-Street investor will be able to make sense of the fog Getty has put up in the conference call to hide the fact that organic growth is miserable.
Third, Getty arrogantly describes their (lackluster) performance as the market trend, as if they are the market. No, Getty, the market of image usage is actually growing faster than you are able to support. The real news is that Getty is losing market-share.
The lack of transparency makes Getty-Images an un-investable business, both from a market and acquisition perspective. The bottom line from the call simply confirms that, forget about everything in-between.
Getty-Images; the king is dead. Long live...
Thursday - February 14, 2008.
While there may be some value left in Getty-Images, remodeling an "old-house" in this case appears to be much more expensive than building a new one. We just completed a formal business plan to build a real photography marketplace for less than $5M first round (est. $13M total, less than 1 fiscal quarter of Getty's capital expenditures, to shed light on Getty's inefficient business model).
The "body" of the Total Addressable Market is $22B / year, ignoring the size of the Long Tail of photography Getty-Images has no penetration in, we will. So, a $13M investment would yield $600M in annual revenues based on 30% market-share (even if we were to cover "the body" only). A darn good business, and best of all, it will help great new photographers get "free" and transparent access to buyers. So good karma too. The walled gardens of the imaging marketplace will be torn down.
Aperture 2.0: nice but unnecessary
Tuesday - February 12, 2008.
Read the complete article...
What's next for Getty-Images?
Monday - February 11, 2008.
Getty-Images appears to be having trouble getting sold for $1.5B according to an article in The New York Times today. Perhaps the 40+ investment banks on Wall street and an equal amount of large private companies that visited our website really took our Puffer Fish analogy to heart.
So what could be done with Getty-Images? The problem with finding an acquisition partner is Getty-Images' hybrid business model. For a technology acquirer the services business with staff photographers is a burden they will not want to swallow. On the flip side, very few other services companies than perhaps the Associated Press can find solace in the photographer factory that is an integral part of Getty-Images.
1/ Buy company at a decent value
2/ Separate content producer business from content distribution
3/ Privatize each
4/ Sell content production business
5/ Revamp content distribution
ad 1/ To establish a fair price I am eager to see the operating plan metrics separating content production from content distribution in order to find out to what extend both lines of businesses have suffered from being under one roof (there may be some opportunity hidden in there)
ad 2/ Content production is a business model that, in today's world, needs to be separated from distribution. With the internet in place as the conduit for distribution, very few company can still afford to compete with the content produced by a "free-market". There is some remaining value left in the production of "premium" content for a "premium" audience, in the same way the Associated Press is able to provide this service to a confederation or co-op of newspapers.
ad 3/ Build companies that focus on what they do best, one produces content - one distributes it. Not within a single company or P&L or board. Each with its own growth trajectory.
ad 4/ Just like in the "premium" production of news articles (where bloggers compete), the news media will require a "premium" production of editorial photographs that has some trust associated with it. Perhaps a deal can be struck with AP - or a new version of AP can be created with identical goals. Getty-Images already has established a large installed base of agencies who can lease resources on a subscription basis.
ad 5/ Long term, content distribution is where the money is. The Long Tail of photography is massive, much larger in total image exchange than any Super-Store will ever be. Thanks to the Internet. But to build an effective free-market, a core of premium supply is needed to create its initial pull, Getty-Images certainly has that. To make this new company a winner though, it needs to truly support free-market principles, something very few companies can pull off.
We'd be happy to assist in the assessment of the Getty-Images acquisition value along the lines of the aforementioned strategy and even more in the post-acquisition execution. Our passion for photography, the ever increasing reach of the internet, and the value produced by all photographers around the world creates a fantastic new opportunity.
today. Perhaps the 40+ investment banks on Wall street and an equal amount of large private companies that visited our website really took our Puffer Fish analogy to heart. So what could be done with Getty-Images? The problem with finding an acquisition partner is Getty-Images' hybrid business model. For a technology acquirer the services business with staff photographers is a burden they will not want to swallow. On the flip side, very few other services companies than perhaps the Associated Press can find solace in the photographer factory that is an integral part of Getty-Images.
1/ Buy company at a decent value
2/ Separate content producer business from content distribution
3/ Privatize each
4/ Sell content production business
5/ Revamp content distribution
ad 1/ To establish a fair price I am eager to see the operating plan metrics separating content production from content distribution in order to find out to what extend both lines of businesses have suffered from being under one roof (there may be some opportunity hidden in there)
ad 2/ Content production is a business model that, in today's world, needs to be separated from distribution. With the internet in place as the conduit for distribution, very few company can still afford to compete with the content produced by a "free-market". There is some remaining value left in the production of "premium" content for a "premium" audience, in the same way the Associated Press is able to provide this service to a confederation or co-op of newspapers.
ad 3/ Build companies that focus on what they do best, one produces content - one distributes it. Not within a single company or P&L or board. Each with its own growth trajectory.
ad 4/ Just like in the "premium" production of news articles (where bloggers compete), the news media will require a "premium" production of editorial photographs that has some trust associated with it. Perhaps a deal can be struck with AP - or a new version of AP can be created with identical goals. Getty-Images already has established a large installed base of agencies who can lease resources on a subscription basis.
ad 5/ Long term, content distribution is where the money is. The Long Tail of photography is massive, much larger in total image exchange than any Super-Store will ever be. Thanks to the Internet. But to build an effective free-market, a core of premium supply is needed to create its initial pull, Getty-Images certainly has that. To make this new company a winner though, it needs to truly support free-market principles, something very few companies can pull off.
We'd be happy to assist in the assessment of the Getty-Images acquisition value along the lines of the aforementioned strategy and even more in the post-acquisition execution. Our passion for photography, the ever increasing reach of the internet, and the value produced by all photographers around the world creates a fantastic new opportunity.
Puff, puff, puff, puff ........... poof
Thursday - February 07, 2008.
So, if you've read my blogs on the imaging market .... why would you plunk down $1.5B to acquire an Image Super Store like Getty-Images (alias Getty).
Consider this:
1/ Non-agency images are always owned by photographers not by Getty
2/ Getty's assets can vaporize quickly, photographers can switch their assets to a better marketplace instantly
3/ The vast majority of images in the world are not transacted through Getty
4/ Getty qualifies premium photographers not premium images
5/ Getty needs to cannibalize its business model in order to meet the Long Tail market requirements
6/ Getty is diluting focus to higher margin media like film and music, fat chance
7/ Getty has the expensive overhead of an agency, with declining image ASPs
8/ Hundreds of new and competing sites indicate Getty's non-supremacy
There is value in Getty-Images, as an agency or as an image store, but I would not put two diametrically opposing business models on the same P&L. Neither one is worth $1.5B. The imaging Puffer Fish is about to deflate.
Consider this:
1/ Non-agency images are always owned by photographers not by Getty
2/ Getty's assets can vaporize quickly, photographers can switch their assets to a better marketplace instantly
3/ The vast majority of images in the world are not transacted through Getty
4/ Getty qualifies premium photographers not premium images
5/ Getty needs to cannibalize its business model in order to meet the Long Tail market requirements
6/ Getty is diluting focus to higher margin media like film and music, fat chance
7/ Getty has the expensive overhead of an agency, with declining image ASPs
8/ Hundreds of new and competing sites indicate Getty's non-supremacy
There is value in Getty-Images, as an agency or as an image store, but I would not put two diametrically opposing business models on the same P&L. Neither one is worth $1.5B. The imaging Puffer Fish is about to deflate.
Fleeting assets of the imaging Puffer Fish
Thursday - February 07, 2008.
The Puffer Fish of the imaging market, as described in my previous blog have large volumes of fleeting image assets. In the end that apparent growth comes at a high cost. So witnessed by the most recent disappointing earnings reports...Read the complete article...
Diving deep with imaging Puffer Fish
Tuesday - January 29, 2008.
Read the complete article...
The Puffer Fish of the imaging market
Sunday - January 27, 2008.
Read the complete article...
Imaging sales market broken from the top
Wednesday - January 23, 2008.
I have received quite a few comments on my previous post (like this) on the imaging marketplace and I am making an attempt to clarify my condensed writing.
The market of selling photographs is fundamentally different from that of selling music, books or other goods. Rather than selling "premium" supply as defined by the number of people that buy the same product, the value of a photograph is defined by how little it sells (just like art). Fundamentally a photography superstore (like Getty Images, Corbis, Jupiter Images and even Digital Railroad) that sells the same image the way Amazon sells books yields the wrong value to the buyer.
A buyer doesn't want the photograph he is about to purchase see appear in deep circulation, yet a reader of a book makes a buying decision based on popular opinion (Oprah, iTunes) and purchases it too. Selling images (and art) requires an inverted superstore that derives its value from the massive distinctive images it sells. Coincidentally the imaging marketplace has changed dramatically from a monolithic market (between agency and pro-photographer) to a Long Tail of supply and demand (between anyone and anyone).
A fantastic opportunity lies ahead to create a new marketplace for photography that caters to new and high growth audiences. Don't get discouraged by the puffer fish of the imaging industry, that portray they own the market. They don't.
) on the imaging marketplace and I am making an attempt to clarify my condensed writing. The market of selling photographs is fundamentally different from that of selling music, books or other goods. Rather than selling "premium" supply as defined by the number of people that buy the same product, the value of a photograph is defined by how little it sells (just like art). Fundamentally a photography superstore (like Getty Images
, Corbis, Jupiter Images and even Digital Railroad) that sells the same image the way Amazon sells books yields the wrong value to the buyer. A buyer doesn't want the photograph he is about to purchase see appear in deep circulation, yet a reader of a book makes a buying decision based on popular opinion (Oprah, iTunes) and purchases it too. Selling images (and art) requires an inverted superstore that derives its value from the massive distinctive images it sells. Coincidentally the imaging marketplace has changed dramatically from a monolithic market (between agency and pro-photographer) to a Long Tail of supply and demand (between anyone and anyone).
A fantastic opportunity lies ahead to create a new marketplace for photography that caters to new and high growth audiences. Don't get discouraged by the puffer fish of the imaging industry, that portray they own the market. They don't.
Image catalogs in peril
Monday - January 21, 2008.
Read the complete article...
The new photo-editing era, a me-too service
Tuesday - September 18, 2007.
Photo-editing today is still an art form, a specialized and necessary art - and "endured" by prosumers. The great photography you see hanging on walls, on websites or in magazines, all have been edited digitally. Not necessarily to create some outrageous creative effect but because not a single camera accurately captures what your eyes see. Not since the invention of photography in 1870.
Camera vendors promise better results when their customers purchase a more expensive dSLR (digital Single Lens Reflex) camera, a better lens, a solid tripod, a new filter, and, while we’re selling: a new photo bag. Yet, none of those products do anything to change the fundamental difference between what your eyes see and what the camera produces. With a healthy growth of more than 60% worldwide in dSLR sales (according to new 2007 numbers from CIPA), most camera vendors are not in a hurry to out-innovate themselves as their current stance is feeding their business so well. So, the problem remains, camera output is far from ideal.
So today, the great results photographers strive for can really only be achieved through editing, reproducing what you tried to capture. That editing today happens primarily on the desktop (less than 10% of the whole photography market edits online) and by digital SLR users with a great sense of quality and aesthetics. Products are plentiful, such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture and my favorite: LightZone. Yet none of those products completely hide photographic complexity to its new users; the massive numbers of dSLR buyers that just want to create great photographs.
Photo-editing should work like a car, simply put the key in the ignition and drive (without having to worry about how the engine and the transmission works). The editing tool of the future should embed the photographic knowledge and make decisions or recommendations for you, rather than requiring its users to become proficient in the minutiae of color and light. Just like a car, photo editing should be able to go where others have gone before, enriching the experience of new users on a continuous basis. New editing techniques should be sharable through a language we all understand, a photograph. In short: edit "like-Mike" and me-too editing is born.
I believe photo-editing will move away from what it is today, a basket full of technology tools to a service through which the sharing of editing techniques will enable the new "language" of photo-editing. That dramatically simplified language will subsequently enable editing for the long-tail of the photography market, the massive market of point-and-shooters. New technologies such as Pixenate, Picnik, Adobe Photoshop Express already rush to deliver a new basket of tools for the consumer market. And many others will follow.
Today, plenty of opportunities remain in the prosumer editing space in which no vendor has amassed even close to 30% penetration. New editing capabilities are bound to drive the marketplace in which monetization of photographs and, eventually a free-market for photography can flourish.
What's left for the innovative camera vendor is to build a proprietary imaging pipeline that dramatically reduces the need to edit. With 90% of dSLR vendors using the same imaging pipeline (behind the sensor) the time is right to change the way a camera captures data before it reaches the sensor. In the same way your eyes do very smart tricks before light hits the retina.
Camera vendors promise better results when their customers purchase a more expensive dSLR (digital Single Lens Reflex) camera, a better lens, a solid tripod, a new filter, and, while we’re selling: a new photo bag. Yet, none of those products do anything to change the fundamental difference between what your eyes see and what the camera produces. With a healthy growth of more than 60% worldwide in dSLR sales (according to new 2007 numbers from CIPA), most camera vendors are not in a hurry to out-innovate themselves as their current stance is feeding their business so well. So, the problem remains, camera output is far from ideal.
So today, the great results photographers strive for can really only be achieved through editing, reproducing what you tried to capture. That editing today happens primarily on the desktop (less than 10% of the whole photography market edits online) and by digital SLR users with a great sense of quality and aesthetics. Products are plentiful, such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Apple Aperture and my favorite: LightZone
. Yet none of those products completely hide photographic complexity to its new users; the massive numbers of dSLR buyers that just want to create great photographs.Photo-editing should work like a car, simply put the key in the ignition and drive (without having to worry about how the engine and the transmission works). The editing tool of the future should embed the photographic knowledge and make decisions or recommendations for you, rather than requiring its users to become proficient in the minutiae of color and light. Just like a car, photo editing should be able to go where others have gone before, enriching the experience of new users on a continuous basis. New editing techniques should be sharable through a language we all understand, a photograph. In short: edit "like-Mike" and me-too editing is born.
I believe photo-editing will move away from what it is today, a basket full of technology tools to a service through which the sharing of editing techniques will enable the new "language" of photo-editing. That dramatically simplified language will subsequently enable editing for the long-tail of the photography market, the massive market of point-and-shooters. New technologies such as Pixenate
, Picnik, Adobe Photoshop Express
already rush to deliver a new basket of tools for the consumer market. And many others will follow. Today, plenty of opportunities remain in the prosumer editing space in which no vendor has amassed even close to 30% penetration. New editing capabilities are bound to drive the marketplace in which monetization of photographs and, eventually a free-market for photography can flourish.
What's left for the innovative camera vendor is to build a proprietary imaging pipeline that dramatically reduces the need to edit. With 90% of dSLR vendors using the same imaging pipeline (behind the sensor) the time is right to change the way a camera captures data before it reaches the sensor. In the same way your eyes do very smart tricks before light hits the retina.
Broadcast Media unleashed
Tuesday - August 09, 2005.
Traditional Broadcast Media is about to get a major overhaul. Traditionally the demi-cartels, consisting of the networks (like ABC, NBC, CBS or in radio Clear Channel, Vivendi etc.) have a stronghold over content production and distribution. Control of these segments is under tremendous new pressure.
1/ Content stronghold
For less than the average cost it takes to setup a restaurant, no more than $50,000, a professional video content production company can be created to produce top quality 1080p HD content (radio can be produced at a fraction of that cost using podcasting technology). Imagine a world in which the number of content production firms rivals the number of restaurants in your town (and not just Al Gore's new Current Network). Soon we will embrace new anchors and fresh programming throughout the whole season, instead of the four seasons of repetitive programming mix we have been forced to swallow for so long.
2/ Distribution stronghold
Most networks own the stations. Up-and-coming content producers are forced to do business with and, obey to the rules of distribution players to get exposure. Now with the advent of IP Television, Podcasting and upcoming convergence technologies from Tivo and Netflix and others, diverse content will be brought to anybody with an internet connection. The judgement of good content will finally rest in the hands of the viewers.
Two major factors play a role in the acceleration of change:
1/ The slowdown: The FCC is working at its own pace to change the 40-year old rules of broadcasting through governmental processes and buy-in.
2/ The speedup: The unstoppable adoption of the Internet will create new broadcast heros and "networks" that reach a broadcast and market hungry audience; our youth.
Networks better get their act together, build their own internet distribution delivery strategy, determine what people really want to watch, use real (not analytical or statistical) popularity data to up-sell popular internet programs to network television. It is not too late for networks to respond, but their time is running out.
Let the games begin.
1/ Content stronghold
For less than the average cost it takes to setup a restaurant, no more than $50,000, a professional video content production company can be created to produce top quality 1080p HD content (radio can be produced at a fraction of that cost using podcasting technology). Imagine a world in which the number of content production firms rivals the number of restaurants in your town (and not just Al Gore's new Current Network). Soon we will embrace new anchors and fresh programming throughout the whole season, instead of the four seasons of repetitive programming mix we have been forced to swallow for so long.
2/ Distribution stronghold
Most networks own the stations. Up-and-coming content producers are forced to do business with and, obey to the rules of distribution players to get exposure. Now with the advent of IP Television, Podcasting and upcoming convergence technologies from Tivo and Netflix and others, diverse content will be brought to anybody with an internet connection. The judgement of good content will finally rest in the hands of the viewers.
Two major factors play a role in the acceleration of change:
1/ The slowdown: The FCC is working at its own pace to change the 40-year old rules of broadcasting through governmental processes and buy-in.
2/ The speedup: The unstoppable adoption of the Internet will create new broadcast heros and "networks" that reach a broadcast and market hungry audience; our youth.
Networks better get their act together, build their own internet distribution delivery strategy, determine what people really want to watch, use real (not analytical or statistical) popularity data to up-sell popular internet programs to network television. It is not too late for networks to respond, but their time is running out.
Let the games begin.
Advertising Make-over
Monday - August 08, 2005.
Blog readership in the first quarter of this year jumped 45 percent to 49.5 million people, or one-sixth of the total U.S. population, according to a report in Red Herring today. As potential buyers are looking to learn from micro-celebrities what to buy and visit the blogs that gave these micro-celebrities their status, advertisers have new opportunities to attach specific marketing messages to specific content in these blogs. A new Adwords or Vibrant Media - like opportunity where blog content is matched with pre-defined and pre-paid advertising keywords or categories is on the horizon. Advertising strategies are changing fast and about to get a big makeover again. Never before have advertisers been able to target buyers more precisely. Another reason why the Internet is becoming such a powerful distribution channel.
today. As potential buyers are looking to learn from micro-celebrities what to buy and visit the blogs that gave these micro-celebrities their status, advertisers have new opportunities to attach specific marketing messages to specific content in these blogs. A new Adwords or Vibrant Media - like opportunity where blog content is matched with pre-defined and pre-paid advertising keywords or categories is on the horizon. Advertising strategies are changing fast and about to get a big makeover again. Never before have advertisers been able to target buyers more precisely. Another reason why the Internet is becoming such a powerful distribution channel. Podcasting; a new free market by Apple
Tuesday - June 28, 2005.
Radio is about to get a major overhaul. With iTunes, record companies are losing their arbitration, no longer are we forced to buy collections (CDs) in order to enjoy that one favorite song. In the near future that power will be diminished even further. Musicians will post their music without intervention and arbitration of a record company, giving buyers the ultimate selection of music they want to enjoy. Pod-casts is the technology that allows you to pick which radio segment you'd like to listen to (instead of a whole program), and deliver it to you at whatever time is convenient. More exciting is that the creation of pod-casts is open to everyone, allowing anyone to get on the soapbox and speak their mind to the world. Independent reporting from the trenches is only minutes away. New music stations will spring up and deliver music from all corners, to all corners of the globe. Welcome to a free world.
Seismic changes in Digital Entertainment
Friday - May 06, 2005.
Attended the Churchill Club seminar under the same name. Interesting speakers were Chuck D (Public Enemy), Roger McNamee (Integral Capital Partners, Silver Lake Partners, Elevation Partners) and Blake Ross (Firefox creator). It is becoming clear that the old rules of how to create or tap into large media markets have changed. To own these markets one must provide a large selection. MP3 music sharing has given listeners a taste of virtually unlimited supply they are not willing to give up on. The Long Tail roars its head yet again. Tivo1, Mike Ramsay added that 50% of programs recorded on Tivo are non-popular programs. Roger quoted the Death of the Pareto principle. The Palo Alto library has known this for many years, more than 75% of its purchasing budget is for non-popular selection. Mobility and locality were mentioned as important side effects of Long Tail markets. The ability to serve up that wide selection on a wide variety of devices is crucial. Arbitration of content (the way record companies enforce The Pareto principle) is no longer accepted by buyers. Buyers want to find any creative material they are interested in, and in some cases, want to have the ability to get in touch with the artist directly. New search capabilities become important to weed through large selections, Google capabilities were considered insufficient. Scanning type search, "I know it when I see it", provides interesting new browse capabilities for buyers. Blake added that as a technology industry we have the responsibility to make things easier to use before we move on to another golden opportunity. We agree with Roger that media should become the new Consumer Packaged Goods.Getty Images; the image demi-cartel
Monday - March 28, 2005.
Getty Images, the self proclaimed market leader in the $7B stock photography market, recently posted an impressive $622M in 2004 revenues. Our in-depth analysis of the market actually shows a 2004 decline in Royalty Free and Rights Managed images sold compared to 2003 and Getty making it up by increasing ASPs significantly and a small increase in editorial sales. Royalty free images were sold at an ASP of $210 compared to $150, Rights Managed images moved up to $585 from $560 in 2003. While the company boasts an impressive 70M images on file, our analysis shows Getty Images sold no more than 1.5M images in 2003, a 3.5% market share of 43M images sold each year in the stock imagery market. Hardly a gorilla, want to know what are they are really selling?
Our opinion: Agency & distribution model are in conflict, restricting organic growth.
Our opinion: Agency & distribution model are in conflict, restricting organic growth.