Some Rules of Web Video We Still Must Heed

Posted by Howard
on July 21st, 2008

1. First of all, I agree with Ashkan – it’s the content stupid .

2. Because of Rule 1, you can’t force advertisers. Google’s buy of YouTube created this panic and rush to monetize and put stupid buyout and valuation numbers in the heads of video start-ups. Eventually, whether YouTube clones or even earlier adopters and content makers agree or not, we need like three steps back. The networks need to take those steps too. In the meantime, watch your freaking costs and don’t lie to yourself.

3. The networks need to start thinking of web video as a farm system. NBC is showing sighns of getting this as Alley Insioder reports with Jimmy Fallon’s new web experiment .

4. The networks (old and NEW would be wise to cull the talent in much better way than their typical stable of agents and other TV shows. They need to embrace the web as a deep broad talent pool (farm system) and utilize the tools available like Tubemogul (I am an investor) to discover talent. The faster they do this, the faster the $8 billion dished out in totum for online video gets put to better use.

5. Don’t be scared by the headlines proclaiming the end of web video because $8 (EIGHT) billion has been spent . In fact, do the opposite and just follow the rules above. Just Think about the following numbers for a moment before you call this a bubble:

Merrill Lynch wrote off $9 billion in bad mortgages in the first quarter of 2008 alone (and $29 billion since the meltdown began.)

F@#ck the bankers and f@#k the idiots telling you web video won’t be gigantic.

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