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New Media News Every Morning

Everybody Counts on Vevo to Salvage What is Left of the Music Video Industry

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Pardon the momentary glitch a couple of hours after its official launch, but Vevo is up and running right now (if you’re in the U.S. at least since the site is not available in most countries). And judging by the way its launch gig went and the support it is getting from major industry players including music artists, it looks like Vevo is headed for big time success.

What if you have Bono, Lady Gaga, John Meyer, Mariah Carey  and Adam Lambert promoting it? Plus Google’s Eric Schmidt  allowing all views of Vevo videos on YouTube to be attributed to Vevo? It’s a clear shot to video site stardom, right?  It looks like Vevo might become the no.3 video site next to YouTube and Hulu perhaps.

Vevo executives expect their site to get more than 400 million video views in the site’s first month of operation. While Mariah hopes Vevo can help salvage something that used to be amazing. Advertisers are joining in as well with the likes of AT&T, McDonalds and other industry players coming on board.

Could Vevo give Hulu a run for its money? Only time can tell. What Vevo needs to do right now is to prepare its site for unsurmountable traffic in the days to come and avoid downtimes as much as possible because that will somehow determine the site’s future.

Originally posted on December 9, 2009 @ 5:07 pm

I Can Haz Blog Empire

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The man who bought out I Can Haz Cheeseburger is slowly building one of the best content empires on the web.

i can haz cheeseburger

“The privately held company was launched in 2007 when Mr. Huh acquired I Can Haz Cheezburger; since then he’s built it through acquisitions (Failblog in 2008) and launches (It Made My Day), into a network of 30 blogs visited by 11.5 million people a month. Failblog’s video site just passed CBS as the 7th most-viewed channel of all time on YouTube. It now has 21 full-time employees and five part-timers and is profitable, though Mr. Huh wouldn’t discuss specifics.”

I love hearing these kinds of success stories although having seen the industry from all sides I don’t envy anyone having to run this type of machine. It’s a hard life that requires a lot of work and lots of tough decisions especially in this digital economy. But Ben Huh has done a marvelous job building an impressive empire of hilarious sites.

Source: Ad Age

Originally posted on October 12, 2009 @ 4:09 pm

Angels Want Startups To Pay To Pitch

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Jason Calacanis get’s it right when he says that Angels shouldn’t be asking Startups for cash for the time to pitch to them. First off Angels have the cash, and the time to listen to startups, and if they don’t have the time they shouldn’t ask startups to pay.

jason calacanis

Jason Calacanis says it a lot better than I can, and in a rare moment I really agree with him on this.

I’ve been in the startup scene since 1994 and in those 15 years I’ve met, interviewed — and in some cases, pitched — the most powerful investors in technology. None of them have ever charged me a dime for doing so.
Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE RICH!

It’s low-class, inappropriate and predatory for a rich person to ask an entrepreneur to PAY THEM for 15 minutes of their time. Seriously, what is the cost to the party hearing the pitch? If you answered “nothing” or “the cost of two cups of coffee” you win the prize!

Originally posted on October 10, 2009 @ 10:04 pm