welcome back to segment two of show 9 of
hip mojo so in the first segment we
talked about media companies being at
the mercy of tech and now we’re going to
talk a little bit about the struggles
so-called between content and the
aggregators or the distribution
companies well mojo is a Content company
aren’t you guys pretty much at the mercy
of tech just like any other media
company um yeah I think if you take a
look at the video battleground there’s
actually four different quadrants you
have the advertising so you know
basically the ad networks or the
technology that addresses advertising so
it could be behavioral targeting and all
that analytics you have technology so
the online video platforms the content
management systems the cdns you have the
content creators and then you have the
aggregators and the distribution
companies and that could basically be a
search engine that just indexes videos
or it could be an aggregator that houses
the videos so I think if you take a look
at the content quadrant where watchmojo
operates in we basically do sometimes
overlap our frenemies so to call it are
in the distribution sphere and then I
think if you take a look at the
advertising guys they overlap a lot with
the technology guys well let’s talk to
them that that frenemy thing because you
hear it at least in the tech area a lot
about co optician you know it’s it’s
kind of like the semiotic competitive
relationship you guys have deals with
companies like five min 5 min grab yeah
I mean okay here you are relying on your
competition for all intents and purposes
well okay this is an interesting thing
that comes up in discussions we have so
if five min when when five mins started
five min actually marks the one-year
anniversary of their exit to AOL for 65
million dollars five min is probably the
only company since youtube that has had
a good outcome exit wise most of the
exits in video have been basically
investors throwing in the towel saying
we’re going to put a bullet in the head
of the startup so five min deserves a
lot of credit for what they’ve done when
51 started it was a site that aggregated
user-generated content or
how to videos their competitors so to
speak mainly was a company like Howcast
howcast was also a website that produced
video so it was professional content
around user-generated content so on day
one they’re more close competitors we
have nothing really to do with I’m sure
we produce videos like Howcast and we
have some how-to videos but we’re
covering everything from profile
celebrity you know bios of people and
whatnot now today howcast remains a
producer of how-to videos and that’s all
that they do and five men took off by
partnering with professional content
producers sort of overlooking the how-to
things it’s almost like they they use
the the UGC as a jumping point as a
building point a distribution network
and then they go after guys like you
what well no but they want is they want
our content because that’s what
advertisers want now the argument that
well why do you give content to five min
it will then why stop at five min why
would we house our videos on YouTube why
would we how’s it on yahoo video why
would we how’s it on hulu right now in
terms of war video is the content
creators and the distribution companies
are two sides of a coin the difference
is in content you don’t have to be
number one to win you could be coke to
somebody else’s Pepsi and vice versa
heck you could be jolt and everybody
sort of can get a piece of the pie when
it comes to the distribution it’s a
winner-takes-all it’s a zero-sum game
youtube became number one because it
basically slaughtered rehberg uba crush
dailymotion and metacafe and you know
made the juice look like Titanic you
know I wouldn’t even call it
slaughtering them they all came after
you tube after you tube is already up
and successful they kind of everyone
before Google was up before YouTube’s
was only registered as a URL in 2005 and
it exited 18 months later because it
realized it needed a big parent like
Google to fund its growth but but
YouTube was actually somewhat profitable
at the time it sold but my point is that
now we are the good thing about a
Content company is we could then over
time flip a switch and say well we’re
not going to be feeding content like an
arms dealer to youtube or five min or
Hulu and then we could align ourselves
with one company and pull our content
and do what we want if you are let’s say
a media company just going to use
company XYZ I don’t want to name any of
our partners if your company XYZ you
come to watch module this is the
critique I sometimes get
yes they might be interested in our
content and true they might be able to
get our content from five min but if
company XYZ takes five min player and
technology and our content is in there
that company XYZ is not really in
control they have to work through five
mins player whereas if they work with a
watchmojo well they’re free to use
whatever player that they want and have
control of the advertising and the tech
right so at the end of the day anybody
could be a competitor with everyone it’s
still very early there’s competitors
that become you know friends overnight
and vice versa but what I what I try to
get you is that it’s a very very long
marathon so I wouldn’t be too worried
about why we partner with a given
company and why we don’t it’s really
just about sort of building more
traction building the brand building the
catalogue and then over time that the
roles won’t change companies that work
together now will be enemies just on the
record labels were basically on the
verge of suing YouTube into like
oblivion and then what happened somebody
had YouTube at the foresight to say well
wait a second instead of you guys suing
us why don’t we basically build vivo and
some genius basically told the lawyers
to go back underneath the rock and
brought out the biz dev guys and they
signed a great partnership right so
these things change over time so it’d
almost be like a newspaper looking at
the newsstand as an antagonistic
relationship just because the newsstand
carries its competitors public exactly
yep and at the end of the day I don’t
think it makes sense for newspapers to
do everything for us we have a team that
is creating some of the best content out
there it doesn’t make sense for us then
to split that resource and say well
we’re also going to build a player
technology and we’re gonna worry about
the agree with you wholeheartedly you
know even it to a certain degree by
partnering with companies like five min
you you get to outsource a lot of your
ad sales and you get to focus on on your
core business model ok now let me ask
you something is there any merit anymore
like where did you ever watch arrested
development a little bit naughty i
actually did was one of the few shows i
watch was pretty entertaining would you
if arrested development has always had
this sort of like cultish following and
and there’s rumors that they’re going to
come back there’s also some truth to the
fact that Fox might not be interested in
bidding for it so Netflix apparently is
coming up and saying we’re interested in
bidding it and then you see someone like
Glenn Beck leaving fox and now he has
his own online presence and he’s doing a
lot of these things which goes straight
to web and TVs almost an afterthought
does offline distribution ever matter to
you I think well it still it still has a
lot of potential like if you can get
offline distribution there still gives
you a lot of perceived credibility and
you know you’ll you’ll get some
interesting instant cash injection I
don’t think you need it anymore and I
think it won’t even be a thought in
probably five to ten years in the way we
are now because the fact of the matter
is is I can go out and push up my
contents across a lot of not ugc
channels but self-serve platforms ugc
channels yeah well you know I i can
write a great novel i can upload it to
kindle i can sell it and i don’t even
need the publishing houses anymore so
it’s nice to have it I don’t think
something like Arrested Development even
needs it especially they got so much
brand recognition if they went straight
to Netflix the cult following will
follow and any of them who are not using
netflix will start just because of that
and I think that’s why Netflix is
interested well I think that’s the thing
that you mentioned is the branding I
think if you have a strong brand you
probably don’t need to rely on the
offline but I think if you don’t have a
brand and you want to build some kind of
presence and distribution online only
it’s not gonna work as the netflixs are
not going to care about you so that’s
the thing and a few years ago I thought
that the celebrities who are doing these
things online we’re doing it because it
was sexy and invoke I think it’s
interesting to see who’s going to keep
doing it and who’s going to go back to
TV which is where the sexy and the big
idea I think it’ll come down to who can
actually market themselves effectively
because pretty much whether you’re
talking about a network or a publisher
they offer three main things they offer
the publishing of the content the
distribution of the content and the
marketing of the content the way the
technology has evolved you definitely
don’t need people to publish and to
distribute anymore which you really need
help with is the marketing so someone
like Glenn Beck he has name recognition
he doesn’t need that anymore he can go
off and if he’s smart about it can push
his own thing obviously if i’m a more of
an indie filmmaker i’m probably not
gonna I’m not guaranteed any viral
success by shooting a small web series
the only thing i find interesting then
we’ll move to lightning round is back in
the day when you basically published a
book and you charge ten dollars for that
book that was a reflection of the cost
of manufacturing and producing that
physical riesling that’s it today the
marginal cost of production is almost
zero I think that’s why you get like
Seth Godin who’s like just take my book
for free because it’s a marketing tool
so I think a lot of creative types have
no
figure that out that no I yeah they’re
all haven’t even even if you look at the
price point it came down to like if I it
was going to cost me whether my book was
50 pages or 500 pages there was still a
certain minimum cost to like print it
bind it and ship it which means that it
was I couldn’t charge less than a
certain amount on the Shelf now be give
whatever that price was no one was going
to pay that much for a 50 page book so
books tended to be 300 pages and up and
now as ebooks Lakes start proliferating
you notice lots of micro content you
know 4050 page books they’re selling for
99 cents because you know there’s those
costs have been completely eroded cool
we’ll take a break and we’ll be back for
lightning well
hip mojo so in the first segment we
talked about media companies being at
the mercy of tech and now we’re going to
talk a little bit about the struggles
so-called between content and the
aggregators or the distribution
companies well mojo is a Content company
aren’t you guys pretty much at the mercy
of tech just like any other media
company um yeah I think if you take a
look at the video battleground there’s
actually four different quadrants you
have the advertising so you know
basically the ad networks or the
technology that addresses advertising so
it could be behavioral targeting and all
that analytics you have technology so
the online video platforms the content
management systems the cdns you have the
content creators and then you have the
aggregators and the distribution
companies and that could basically be a
search engine that just indexes videos
or it could be an aggregator that houses
the videos so I think if you take a look
at the content quadrant where watchmojo
operates in we basically do sometimes
overlap our frenemies so to call it are
in the distribution sphere and then I
think if you take a look at the
advertising guys they overlap a lot with
the technology guys well let’s talk to
them that that frenemy thing because you
hear it at least in the tech area a lot
about co optician you know it’s it’s
kind of like the semiotic competitive
relationship you guys have deals with
companies like five min 5 min grab yeah
I mean okay here you are relying on your
competition for all intents and purposes
well okay this is an interesting thing
that comes up in discussions we have so
if five min when when five mins started
five min actually marks the one-year
anniversary of their exit to AOL for 65
million dollars five min is probably the
only company since youtube that has had
a good outcome exit wise most of the
exits in video have been basically
investors throwing in the towel saying
we’re going to put a bullet in the head
of the startup so five min deserves a
lot of credit for what they’ve done when
51 started it was a site that aggregated
user-generated content or
how to videos their competitors so to
speak mainly was a company like Howcast
howcast was also a website that produced
video so it was professional content
around user-generated content so on day
one they’re more close competitors we
have nothing really to do with I’m sure
we produce videos like Howcast and we
have some how-to videos but we’re
covering everything from profile
celebrity you know bios of people and
whatnot now today howcast remains a
producer of how-to videos and that’s all
that they do and five men took off by
partnering with professional content
producers sort of overlooking the how-to
things it’s almost like they they use
the the UGC as a jumping point as a
building point a distribution network
and then they go after guys like you
what well no but they want is they want
our content because that’s what
advertisers want now the argument that
well why do you give content to five min
it will then why stop at five min why
would we house our videos on YouTube why
would we how’s it on yahoo video why
would we how’s it on hulu right now in
terms of war video is the content
creators and the distribution companies
are two sides of a coin the difference
is in content you don’t have to be
number one to win you could be coke to
somebody else’s Pepsi and vice versa
heck you could be jolt and everybody
sort of can get a piece of the pie when
it comes to the distribution it’s a
winner-takes-all it’s a zero-sum game
youtube became number one because it
basically slaughtered rehberg uba crush
dailymotion and metacafe and you know
made the juice look like Titanic you
know I wouldn’t even call it
slaughtering them they all came after
you tube after you tube is already up
and successful they kind of everyone
before Google was up before YouTube’s
was only registered as a URL in 2005 and
it exited 18 months later because it
realized it needed a big parent like
Google to fund its growth but but
YouTube was actually somewhat profitable
at the time it sold but my point is that
now we are the good thing about a
Content company is we could then over
time flip a switch and say well we’re
not going to be feeding content like an
arms dealer to youtube or five min or
Hulu and then we could align ourselves
with one company and pull our content
and do what we want if you are let’s say
a media company just going to use
company XYZ I don’t want to name any of
our partners if your company XYZ you
come to watch module this is the
critique I sometimes get
yes they might be interested in our
content and true they might be able to
get our content from five min but if
company XYZ takes five min player and
technology and our content is in there
that company XYZ is not really in
control they have to work through five
mins player whereas if they work with a
watchmojo well they’re free to use
whatever player that they want and have
control of the advertising and the tech
right so at the end of the day anybody
could be a competitor with everyone it’s
still very early there’s competitors
that become you know friends overnight
and vice versa but what I what I try to
get you is that it’s a very very long
marathon so I wouldn’t be too worried
about why we partner with a given
company and why we don’t it’s really
just about sort of building more
traction building the brand building the
catalogue and then over time that the
roles won’t change companies that work
together now will be enemies just on the
record labels were basically on the
verge of suing YouTube into like
oblivion and then what happened somebody
had YouTube at the foresight to say well
wait a second instead of you guys suing
us why don’t we basically build vivo and
some genius basically told the lawyers
to go back underneath the rock and
brought out the biz dev guys and they
signed a great partnership right so
these things change over time so it’d
almost be like a newspaper looking at
the newsstand as an antagonistic
relationship just because the newsstand
carries its competitors public exactly
yep and at the end of the day I don’t
think it makes sense for newspapers to
do everything for us we have a team that
is creating some of the best content out
there it doesn’t make sense for us then
to split that resource and say well
we’re also going to build a player
technology and we’re gonna worry about
the agree with you wholeheartedly you
know even it to a certain degree by
partnering with companies like five min
you you get to outsource a lot of your
ad sales and you get to focus on on your
core business model ok now let me ask
you something is there any merit anymore
like where did you ever watch arrested
development a little bit naughty i
actually did was one of the few shows i
watch was pretty entertaining would you
if arrested development has always had
this sort of like cultish following and
and there’s rumors that they’re going to
come back there’s also some truth to the
fact that Fox might not be interested in
bidding for it so Netflix apparently is
coming up and saying we’re interested in
bidding it and then you see someone like
Glenn Beck leaving fox and now he has
his own online presence and he’s doing a
lot of these things which goes straight
to web and TVs almost an afterthought
does offline distribution ever matter to
you I think well it still it still has a
lot of potential like if you can get
offline distribution there still gives
you a lot of perceived credibility and
you know you’ll you’ll get some
interesting instant cash injection I
don’t think you need it anymore and I
think it won’t even be a thought in
probably five to ten years in the way we
are now because the fact of the matter
is is I can go out and push up my
contents across a lot of not ugc
channels but self-serve platforms ugc
channels yeah well you know I i can
write a great novel i can upload it to
kindle i can sell it and i don’t even
need the publishing houses anymore so
it’s nice to have it I don’t think
something like Arrested Development even
needs it especially they got so much
brand recognition if they went straight
to Netflix the cult following will
follow and any of them who are not using
netflix will start just because of that
and I think that’s why Netflix is
interested well I think that’s the thing
that you mentioned is the branding I
think if you have a strong brand you
probably don’t need to rely on the
offline but I think if you don’t have a
brand and you want to build some kind of
presence and distribution online only
it’s not gonna work as the netflixs are
not going to care about you so that’s
the thing and a few years ago I thought
that the celebrities who are doing these
things online we’re doing it because it
was sexy and invoke I think it’s
interesting to see who’s going to keep
doing it and who’s going to go back to
TV which is where the sexy and the big
idea I think it’ll come down to who can
actually market themselves effectively
because pretty much whether you’re
talking about a network or a publisher
they offer three main things they offer
the publishing of the content the
distribution of the content and the
marketing of the content the way the
technology has evolved you definitely
don’t need people to publish and to
distribute anymore which you really need
help with is the marketing so someone
like Glenn Beck he has name recognition
he doesn’t need that anymore he can go
off and if he’s smart about it can push
his own thing obviously if i’m a more of
an indie filmmaker i’m probably not
gonna I’m not guaranteed any viral
success by shooting a small web series
the only thing i find interesting then
we’ll move to lightning round is back in
the day when you basically published a
book and you charge ten dollars for that
book that was a reflection of the cost
of manufacturing and producing that
physical riesling that’s it today the
marginal cost of production is almost
zero I think that’s why you get like
Seth Godin who’s like just take my book
for free because it’s a marketing tool
so I think a lot of creative types have
no
figure that out that no I yeah they’re
all haven’t even even if you look at the
price point it came down to like if I it
was going to cost me whether my book was
50 pages or 500 pages there was still a
certain minimum cost to like print it
bind it and ship it which means that it
was I couldn’t charge less than a
certain amount on the Shelf now be give
whatever that price was no one was going
to pay that much for a 50 page book so
books tended to be 300 pages and up and
now as ebooks Lakes start proliferating
you notice lots of micro content you
know 4050 page books they’re selling for
99 cents because you know there’s those
costs have been completely eroded cool
we’ll take a break and we’ll be back for
lightning well
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