February 22, 2006
YouTube is quickly becoming a premier site with plenty of content and lots of traffic, but is it a real business? Web Blogs Inc. Chairman Jason Calacanis doesn’t think so, citing a couple reasons:
4. YouTube is not a real business (or an innovative business). This is my main point. Let’s not look at YouTube’s page views and claim they are some amazing business. Napster and Kazaa had a ton of traffic too–it just wasn’t web-based. If you could do an Alexa graph of Kazaa, BitTorrent, Usenet, and the old Napster they would be number one through four on Alexa!
Watching DIGG, Engadget, and MySpace climb in the rankings? Those are real businesses. If those sites added the ability to distribute stolen video in two clicks they would shoot up to the top 10 sites!
This is just a part of his post.
My interpretation of Jason is that based on his business experience, he fails to see how YouTube can be a legitimate revenue turner. He is used to journalism and related properties. Not all business plans require instant revenue. In the case of an online property, whats important is the gathering of traffic. And YouTube has realized that the quickest way to do that is to offer “all” content both copyrighted and legal to be distributed through their site. Its always about the content and they know this.
Once they have the traffic they want, they can cut the illegal stuff and still retain a large enough audience to generate revenue from. Ideas that come to mind include:
1) Video advertisements
2) A subscription service for viewers (not the smartest move)
3) Content deals with NBC, CBS etc, maybe charge per download for premium content
4) Lets make people register before they can view the videos, now we have e-mail addresses and personal information
There are a million ways to generate revenue once the traffic is there.
As for there being copyrighted content on there, keep in mind that YouTube is like a message board. They are not posting the content themselves, their readers are. As long as they do a “best effort” to remove copyrighted material, they should be ok. Because the content is user submitted, there is a certain amount of liability relief so-to-speak.
In my opinion, Digg.com is no different than YouTube, they both show user submitted content, YouTube just happens to show video content rather than links to stories. The BIG difference is that Digg is providing links out, they are not posting written copyrighted material, and I get that, which is why YouTube needs to be very careful.
February 17, 2006
We announced earlier this week our new video section. This has to be one of the riskiest moves we have taken, but I think it’s the right thing to do. The videos were shot on a Canon XL2 camcorder in 16:9 high-definition. The production quality is second to none, and because it’s broadcast quality, don’t be suprised to see some of these videos on TV in the near future 
We are working with a number of partners that will be distributing our videos to a number of websites, we are talking tens of millions of streams here - talk about exciting!
In the short term, look for our videos on our friends sites:
www.hardocp.com
www.i4u.com
www.thetechlounge.com
www.ecoustics.com
www.xyzcomputing.com
Click here to check out our latest videos, and look for more shortly!
Sync Magazine which I was a subscriber to, has officially gone under. I found out yesterday when I recieved a copy of PC Magazine in the mail instead. When I contacted Ziff Davis, they said the magazine is no longer available. In looking at back issues, it certainly was not for the lack of advertisers, every magazine is packed with ads. So that must mean there simply were not enough subscribers. I also know that the magazine was distributed very poorly as I would rarely come across it on the magazine racks.
Personally, I liked looking at the gadgets in the mag, but the articles were poorly written with very little sustenance, it reminded me of T3 magazine which failed here in the states a very years back (but which still thrives in the UK). A good magazine that has some well written articles is Cargo, make sure to check it out, its one of my favorites.
February 13, 2006
My friend Luis and I stopped by CompUSA over the weekend tso Luis could pick up a new laptop. We found the salesman unknowledgable but extrememly eager to sell us an extended warranty. So eager in fact that we had 3 salesmen plus the stores assistant manager following us around pitching the extended waranty to us. We saw a bunch of unethical tactics which include:
- Being told that laptops are not made the way they used to be and will eventually break within the first year
- Most of the pixels on the screen will die and we will need that extended warranty to replace the screen (which apparently costs like 80% of the total laptop price according to CompUSA)
- The manufacturers give you 90 days of warranty support and after than you are screwed and the manufacturer will not help you (this sounds about right) - The salespeople were not able to tell us the difference in warranties between the Compaq and ACER systems, apparently all manufacturer warranties are the same
- They wanted to charge us $20 for updating Windows XP to have all the latest patches (duuuurrrr??)
- As soon as we walk out the door and open the laptop box, we cannot return it to the store for any reason (although on the back of the receipt it says we have 21 days to exchange it)
So what they basically told me in summary is that all the laptops they sell are garbage and will break once you walk out of the door, they are not reliable and CompUSA will not support us if we have a problem. I almost exploded in anger watching them pitch us for 30 minutes as we waited to go to the checkout.
Ridiculous
I am sure that all of these laptop companies would love to watch the sales process there, its embarrassing and pure harassment.
If you have had a similiar incident someone, please comment, I would love to hear it.
I got my DISH Network bill in the mail recently and noticed that our monthly rate had crept up to a little over $70 dollars/mo, more than I would like to pay. We have one DVR, an HD box, regular reciever, America’s Top 60 with Local Channels and HBO. Not a bad deal, but still more than I want to pay. So I called DISH to cancel HBO since we rarely watch it.
I am on hold for 12 minutes
The call goes to India and I have trouble understanding the lady
They charge me a $5 cancellation fee
I am wondering at this point why they deserve my business, but I assume DirecTV is the same way. I know I do not like Comcast Digital Cable, so I am out of options.
Another annoying bit is that you can supposedly “manage” your account through Dish Networks website, but in reality you can only add programming, not remove it, so you are forced one way or another to call them.