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Blog Maverick
Blog Maverick

Blog Maverick
  • Ruh Roh - Porn could sink Youtube in Viacom case....
    "Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on YouTube, a judge ruled Wednesday."

    Viacom wants to know whether copyrighted or user generated content is more popular. Thats nice to know. What will really tip the balance of power in this case, now that every viewing instance will be in Viacom's possession, is the answer to how Youtube deals with porn.

    Who identifies the porn on Youtube ? According to Youtube, its regular users who police the site. Personally, I dont believe it. Whether its individuals or technology that keep porn off of Youtube, it really doesn't matter. If Viacom can use this data to show that Youtube manages the presentation of porn in any way, then they lose their DMCA protection.

    Which means they lose their case to Viacom.
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  • NBC vs Fanboys vs Sports Talk Radio vs The Olympics
    I enjoyed the conversations discussing my position on NBA Players in the Olympics. The sports world is its own social network where much is said , written and quickly forgotten about anything and everything that can be argued about. My last post included.

    The sports world however is on an amateur scale when it comes to arguing for the sake of arguing compared to the world of technology fanboys. They are about to see just how overmatched they are

    It all starts with this "No Olympics video is allowed to be shown online on any website other than NBCOlympics.com"

    Translated, this means that no Olympics video is allowed on Youtube, Veoh or any video sharing site. It means that if you are an Olympic athlete and you want to post video of your Gold Medal winning, world record performance on your Facebook or Myspace page, those sites may just get a takedown notice saying you dont have those rights, leaving the dreaded "this video has been removed....." text in its place.

    If you stayed up all night to watch an amazing finish to an event that you wanted to share with friends, forgettaboutit. Unless you plan on making an expensive fair use legal argument, you re going to be running afoul of the NBC legal department.

    For all things Olympics video online, its NBCOlympics.com or nothing.

    All of which is fighting words to the very vocal the internet and Youtube can do no wrong fanboys. They will scream, yell and comment spam and response video to the point of hyperventilation. They will do interviews on every sports, technology and cable news show. It will become a multi platform, multi media issue. They will be loud

    It will also send the message to the sports world that the Olympics is driven by money. A fact that will resonate every time someone watches the Olympics, except hopefully between the gun and the tape and the starting and ending whistles of events. Which of course means it will be sports talk radio fodder 24x7 on every radio dial in every city in America with ESPN segments everywhere covering the "controversy"

    The Olympics will of course be a major topic of conversation this summer, it will be interesting to see how much of the conversation will be about the athletes and which world, technology or sports will have more influence on NBC and their policies.
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  • The NBA and the Olympics
    This is my original post on the NBA and the Olympics. One thing I will add to it is for each and every blogger who so desires to undertake a simple test. On your blog, add a picture of the Olympics 5 Rings and a picture of your favorite player in their Olympic uniform. Underneath the pictures, add the caption, "My Official Olympics Update" and then chronicle that player in the Olympics with pictures from the official Olympics website. Show your patriotism and pride... that is until the you get a takedown letter or a Cease and Desist ordering you to take it down.

    Thats how much about country and pride the Olympics is these days....

    A 2nd item to generate some thought is the concept of players and coaches "And 1ing" their nationalities in order to be able to participate or to better market themselves. Whats "And 1ing" ? Being born and/or raised in one country but leveraging a ancestral link to another country where your odds are better to make the team. So for instance, your great, great grandfather was born in Upper Slobobia. in order to play on the Upper Slobobian basketball or handball team, you get a passport from there. Thats "And 1ing". Adding a nationality so that you can play on their team.

    Or what about giving up citizenship from your native country to come here and play on our team. Is that what we want to root for as we face an onslaught of commercials on one of who knows how many cable networks that GE will be filling with Olympic programming ?

    Are we sure the Olympics is about patriotism and pride ? Or is it about commercialism ? Im certaintly not against GE and the US Olympic Team making as much money as they possibly can on the game. More power to them. But lets not lie to ourselves about what is going on.

    Here is my original post from more than 4 years ago.

    NBA and the Olympics

    Apr 7th 2004 10:54AM

    Once again I was asked about my position on NBA players and the Olympics. One question from 1 reporter usually leads to followups form 100 more. So in the interest of disclosure, fairness and time, I decided to post the response here and save myself some time.....

    In the sports marketing world, advertisers usually have a set sports marketing budget. Each advertiser gets pitched by all the different sports entities competing for those dollars. Among those competitors are both the Olympics and NBA. One of the beauties of the NBA pitch is that our athletes are so recognizable, personable and respected. The ability for an advertiser to connect their products to KG, Tim Duncan, Shaq, Dirk, etc, individually, or by buying sponsorship or commercials in game, is a huge selling point for us. It should be a huge selling point exclusively available to the NBA, but unfortunately that is no longer the case.

    When the NBA was broadcast on NBC, it was far less of an issue. With NBC as the home of the Olympics and the NBA broadcast partner, there were a ton of cross promotional and selling opportunities. NBC could promote the Olympics in NBA games, and promote the NBA in the Olympics broadcasts. NBC could require advertisers to buy NBA advertising in order to get Olympic advertising,or vice versa. There were untold win - win scenarios by having both the Olympics and the NBA together at NBC.

    That obviously is not longer the case. The NBA is now on ESPN/ABC and TNT. They are paying us a lot of money in a deal that has been working well for all invovled. What in the world are we doing helping our partners competition ? Why are we giving our most valuable manpower to a huge business, the Olympics so they can try to take revenue away from the NBA and our partners ?

    Lets put this in basketball terms...Would you trade KG, TD, Peja, Jermaine and 10 more all stars , and pay their salaries in case they get hurt , for ..........nothing.

    In exchange for providing our best players to the Olympics, the value we are supposed to receive is increased visibility and demand for the NBA, its players and merchandise. The value of which can be quantified as the total revenues received annually by each team from international TV and merchandise sales.

    I wont tell you what that number is,but I can tell you it wouldnt pay the salary of a player signed for the million dollar exception this year.

    So we are subsidizing the US Olympic committee by:

    - Providing players that we pay for

    - Reducing the amount of advertising dollars available to the NBA and our broadcast partners by allowing advertisers to use our players via Olympic broadcasts and programs

    - Putting our most valuable players at risk, with the possibility of having to pay their salaries even if they are unable to perform,or to perform at the previous levels

    - Potentially cheating our fans and customers who make investments in our league, teams and products, with players who are worn down or injured from their Olympic experience

    - Whats even crazier is that the USA fans who buy our tickets and pay the players salary probably wont even get to see our stars in more than the Gold medal game. If that !

    Where is the logic in any of this ?

    I understand that players want to represent their countries. Thats great. Lets put toegether an NBA organized and sanctioned international competition that we can control and profit from. We can allow any country to enter a team, and let NBA players represent their country.

    If its that important, lets also expand the exhibitions the NBA plays in and against other countries. Im all for international play as long as its in the context of an NBA program that gives consideration to the core NBA fan, customer and partner first and foremost.

    If you agree, call your favorite team and tell them you dont want your players participating in the Olympics. You want them getting ready for the next season. And then order your season tickets :)



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  • Hulu is kicking Youtube's Ass
    It is coming up on 2 years post my declaration that only a moron would buy Youtube and that Google was crazy for actually going through with it.

    In that period of time, while Youtube traffic has skyrocketed, they have been steadfast in their admission that they haven't been able to monetize Youtube's traffic in a profitable manner. Youtube has become the poster child for the old saying "we are losing money on every sale, but we will make it up in volume". To the Youtube fan club, its inconceivable that any website with so much traffic and marketshare could be in anything but an enviable position. The fan boys would be increasingly wrong. The Youtube business model is broken and there is no light at the end of the tunnel as they are currently constructed.

    The reason is Hulu.

    Hulu doesn't serve up more videos than Youtube. They aren't even remotely close in number of total users or videos served. But there is one area in which Hulu is just stomping up and down Youtube, and another in which Hulu is laughing at Youtube all the way to bank.


    Lets start with the 2nd, Hulu laughing at Youtube. Youtube has presented to Hulu something that we can simply call The Youtube Arbitrage. Whats the Youtube Arbitrage you ask ? Simple. Hulu posts clips, not full episodes, clips on its Youtube channel and elsewhere on Youtube. Those clips are preroll AND overlays AND post rolls promoting Hulu and its full episodes of shows and movies. All of which costs Hulu the ginormous cost of ....nothing. From which it generates traffic to its Hulu site on which it sells, to the point of often selling out, display and preroll ads. That's the ultimate arbitrage. We pay you nothing, and you send us traffic that generates ad revenue for us.

    Which leads us to the one area, OK lets say two areas that Hulu is just stomping all over Youtube;
    1. Revenue Per Video
    2. Revenue Per User

    Hulu has one HUGE advantage over Youtube, it has the right to sell advertising in and around every single video on its site. It can package and sell any way that might make its customers happy. Youtube on the other hand, has that right for only the small percentage of the videos on its site that it has a licensing deal with. For probably 99pct or more of the videos on the site, Youtube isn't supposed to know what they even are.

    How can that be ? Because Youtube hides behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Hulu is a media site that presents videos with advertising. It can do whatever it wants. Youtube ts a hosting service. Its not allowed to know what videos are uploaded by users and its not allowed to generate revenue against those videos. It can only sell advertising around videos it has licenses to.

    Which leads to a question and a prediction.

    The Question: Which site currently has more monetizable video and traffic, Youtube or Hulu ?     I don't know the answer. I'm guessing that its already a close race and may even be in Hulu's favor. I do know that Youtube's need for more monetizable traffic is why they added the check box for Partner Videos. Notice that those are the only videos that you see ads next to.

    The Prediction: That by next year, not only will Hulu have more monetizable traffic than Youtube, but it will have more total revenues than Youtube as well. It wouldn't sup rise me if they are already at a higher annual run rate than Youtube.

    All of which puts Youtube in a VERY BAD spot. Because Hulu can monetize 100pct of their growing traffic, they should be in a position to pay for the best content available. Not a lot of money, but even with the tiniest of guaranteed payments to producers, they will not only attract better content than Youtube, but they will also increase the cost to Youtube for the content they want most to license. Furthermore, because Hulu knows exactly what they have on the site and can sell 100pct of it, their professional sales force will be in a better position to package and sell bigger and more profitable ad solutions.

    It will be interesting to see how Youtube responds.

    As it stands today however, there is no doubt that Hulu, if it doesn't already, will have more monetizable traffic and greater revenues than Youtube going forward.

    Which means that the more traffic Hulu generates, the more money it makes. The more traffic Youtube generates, the more money it loses.. Maybe they think they will make it up with even more volume ?

    I'm sure the fan boys are convinced they will.




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  • My New Favorite Saying:
    Today is the youngest you will ever be. Act like it.
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