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| The Clash of Old and New Media Continues Posted: 28 Jul 2008 12:52 PM CDT
Just today, two big announcements were made that highlight the continuation of this trend. The first announcement was that The Washington Post will begin using Predictify for stories. The tool will enable readers to vote on possible outcomes of stories. While not a revolutionary tool, the shift from one-way media to two way is an important component of this announcement. This also highlights the difference between traditional media and social media. As Robert Scoble highlighted this past weekend, participation is a critical component of the new form of media. While traditional media outlets will still have to verify their sources, the process of generating the entire story could soon involve the readers. Not only are the readers participating but they are also becoming part of the media. This is highlighted by today’s news announcement that Gannett has invested $10 million in Mogulus, a live-streaming video service. I’ve previously taken a look at Mogulus and I was thoroughly impressed. The best part about the tool is that you can have a 24-hour channel which includes previous media that you’ve shot as well as live-streaming media. The Mogulus tool is the most robust one that I’ve seen to date and taken to the next level I honestly think Mogulus could be revolutionary. When I previously took a look at Mogulus, I thought that it would spell the end of public access television. Anybody can now have their own custom-branded channel with custom content. You can also pre-program your channel making it easy to have content playing while you are away. Over the coming months I would guess that we will see many more announcements highlighting the clash of old and new media. Do you agree that these announcements are particularly significant? |
| MySpace Growth Slows, Revenue Grows Posted: 28 Jul 2008 09:30 AM CDT
According to Peter Kafka, the company will generate an EBITDA (earnings before interest, depreciation, taxes and amortization) of $155 million this year on revenue of near $650 million. That surpasses Facebook’s public estimate of more than $300 million in revenue this year. That’s not surprising though considering the plethora of advertisements displayed around the site. Peter Kafka has used 15x and 20x EBITDA multiples to determine a valuation of somewhere between $2.3 and $3.1 billion. The largest problem lies with the projected revenue growth which is between 10 and 15 percent year over year. This highlights the larger problem at hand: nobody has yet to figure out how to monetize social networks effectively. Google continues to post massive growth rates despite a declining economy but the second largest social network appears to be dwindling. Things don’t appear to be much brighter at Facebook aside from continued growth abroad which is keeping the company highly attractive. One thing is clear: while social networks command a large percentage of attention online, they generate only a small fraction of the revenue. This is a problem that must be solved if the social web is going to continue to thrive. |
| Posted: 28 Jul 2008 08:00 AM CDT
The targeting of articles is based on your profile information that you’ve entered on LinkedIn. The primary source of information is your industry. Once activated, you will see up to five articles that are relevant to your industry as embedded as illustrated below: Unfortunately I haven’t tested out the new feature so I can’t tell you how well it works but the concept of targeted news is not a foreign one. For example the Seen This application on Facebook, enables users to find news relevant to them based on what their friends are reading. This is a big partnership for LinkedIn though as it could also help increase the number of new user registrations. Last week LinkedIn also announced that they would begin offering the site in Spanish. This is the first new language that the site has launched in. In comparison to other social networks, LinkedIn has been relatively slow on the foreign language front. Both Facebook and MySpace have launched in multiple languages. Thanks to Facebook’s translations application, the site has been translated into 15 languages to date. Finally, LinkedIn announced that they will begin integrating with Xobni, which has been hailed as the most useful email add-on, and LexisNexis. The partnership with Xobni emphasizes something I was discussing almost two weeks ago: the social platform race is really a race to my contact list. The faster that these companies can make my contact list accessible anywhere, the faster that they make my reliance on them as a service more critical. While the Facebook news last week may have quieted some of LinkedIn’s buzz, the new partnerships did not go unheard. LinkedIn is still clearly one of the primary competitors in the social platform wars. Last week’s announcements by the company emphasizes their continued dedication to rapid expansion. |
With the continuing shift of content from offline to online, traditional media companies are being forced to rapidly adapt. While the best online business model for media has yet to be determined, traditional media companies are racing to forge partnerships and make acquisitions and investments that position themselves ahead of the rest. 
According to Peter Kafka, MySpace has been seeing a slow down in growth on a year-over-year basis. That’s not really a secret though considering the most recent traffic data from comscore as well as taking a look at charts of MySpace via Compete.com and Alexa. While Facebook continues to rise as the most dominant social network, MySpace growth has come to a halt but revenue isn’t too shabby.
While I was busy traveling around the country last week, LinkedIn was busy announcing new partnerships and new features. On Monday LinkedIn announced that they would be partnering with the New York Times. Their partnership enables two new features: the ability to receive targeted news headlines and the addition of LinkedIn to the Times’ share feature. 
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