More later, but here's one thing I've learned in the past 3-5 years: Technologists are as horrible at carving out new markets for themselves as business with longtime profit models like Media Buying. Everybody has been running around for the past few years looking for the ideal case study in serialized online video content like obsequious MBA students, but nobody is willing to take a risk. It's pathetic.
2009/3/10 Steve Watkins <st...@dvmachine.com> > I presume they'd have been all over the space like a rash if there were > more success stories on which to build the dream? > > Im out of date, havent found an indy web show I wanted to watch for years, > find few compelling UK podcasts or video shows. Itunes podcast directory > totally dominated by mainstream media, many 'average' people at work are now > watching video online, but most of it is from the big networks, or very > random youtube stuff. > > Granted the Media Buying agencies are in trouble in future, as the nature > of media shifts, the death of print media, shrinking audience figures, but > Im not surprised they arent innovating in this direction, compelling > evidence that there is lots of money to be made in future isnt there, so > maybe they think it would just be a waste, they dont see it as their future > saviour. They need things to be on a certain scale in order to sustain > middlemen like them, and it aint happening fast, if at all. > > Need to hear more success stories, or more brutally honest accounts of > those who have been in this space and seen the reality. But as so many > people in that space rely on selling something, and hype, there hasnt been > the level of openness about this stuff, much sense of reality. We are caught > between stupidly optimistic numbers and hype (that is fast vanishing in the > economic crisis), and negative naysayers like myself. We have heard from a > few people who made a commercial success of their shows, some who are stuck > or had their backing removed. We see a company fail or people fallout from > time to time which sometimes yields interesting details, though often > diputed ones, but I dont hear anything like enough to begin to form a proper > opinion. I just take the lack of sucess stories as a general indicator that > all is not well. > > Im hardly convinced any of the parts of the jigsaw are in place, apart from > the technology. There are a lack of shows that talented people want to make, > a lack of viewers clamouring for such projects to get funding, a lack of > middlemen, and a lack of companies wanting to advertise their stuff in this > space. > > Online video for social communication has flourished, mass media, tv > networks etc seem to be getting somewhere, but commercialised indy net video > is a fail - maybe its just hard to monetarise no matter the reduced costs of > production & new distribution methods. Maybe indy fails because it tries to > play the same game as the big boys, a game that is only suitable for the big > boys, they made it, they trained people what to expect. And there is an > overabundance of distribution space, far far more channels & capacity than > there are humans to make compelling content or to watch on a scale that can > make real money that others can take a cut of. For everyone else there is > less commercialisation to be found, gotta be in it for the love and joy. > Hooray for the 'folk' aspects of humans and the net, its a wonderful thing, > and I see far more hope of compelling content coming from the free art side > of things than the commercial. Its quite hilarious that in several ways, the > net is not the perfect tool for capitalism, it lends itself to other forms > of human cooperation. > > Cheers > > Steve Elbows > > --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com <videoblogging%40yahoogroups.com>, > Jeffrey Taylor <thejeffreytay...@...> wrote: > > > > But the ignorance of content creators is just part of the problem. Media > > Buying companies should have been reaching out to us long ago. Instead of > > clinging for dear life to lucrative-but-dwindling 30 second broadcast ads > > and print media buys, Media Buying agencies should have set a rate > structure > > and a buying system for online video. Anyone in online video should know > the > > names of these agencies like they would any other big-name service, but > it > > seems they don't care to know us, and we don't care to know them. I > always > > wondered why, and I think I got my answer this morning: they're in a > bubble. > > > > > > > -- Jeffrey Taylor 912 Cole St, #349 San Francisco, CA 94117 USA Mobile: +14157281264 Fax: +33177722734 http://twitter.com/jeffreytaylor http://organicconversations.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
