boylerob
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@hamishmckenzieSweet. lol. Have you checked out nytimes.com on your phone? I'm not saying that the NYT doesn't say "Read your favorite sections of The New York Times on your mobile device" I'm saying you might want to hit good ole nytimes.com on your phone.
Heads up: The New York Times doesn't even have a dedicated mobile site... Sort of invalidating this bit "And some, like the New York Times, are just making sure they’re everywhere: on mobile apps, in the browser, and on HTML5 sites.". Just a heads up.
This was a really thoughtful piece. Thanks for it.
For me, this is particularly interesting in the context of an echo chamber comprised of mostly entrepreneurs and/or people who have built companies from the ground up vs. those who have helped companies grow once they're established (participated in social media strategies/marketing/etc).
The reason I say this is because as someone who has been dirt poor/broke while working 120 hours/week on a company that I felt like was my baby, it was of critical importance for me to get "motivational" feedback from peers -- not necessarily "what a great idea" but more like "you can do it"... Which is exactly what I tell my friends who are trying to change the world right now by building iPhone apps. :)
Anyway, I guess that since I can relate to the physicality of their struggle, along with the mental wear and tear that accompanies it, I try and be encouraging/motivating about their ability to execute instead of their general concept (which, generally speaking, ends up being sort of 'meh'). Just to help them get through the 3AM-5AM part of the all-nighter if nothing else.
Not sure if this is interesting to you but this distinction made sense to me.
Any chance you can break out or explain how "hits" are counted, because Buzzfeed floats around 10m/month on comScore (which could be 20mm on GA)... which would make some of these numbers pretty tough to normalize against. Any idea?
Totally spot-on analysis here Matt. Personally, I am drawn to "going transactional: -- this concept embraces the native benefits of the phone (geo-awareness) in a way that actually benefits the user experience (unlike ads) -- but can see the value in all four of the paths you outlined. That said, I would go even further and widen the perspective of this path (#3) by making it about vertical integration not just transactions. Transactions are an elegant solution to the mobile + monetization problem because it removes the dependency on brand advertisers and refocus on adding value to users, but as a media company that's really just the tip of the iceberg... In my (limited) experience you have what every startup founder is looking for -- readers, looking to be informed and educated about what is hot/new/fresh/etc. -- and vertical integration via native or web-based apps/services provides a deep opportunity to leverage the greatest benefit of running a media company. Assuming of course this development/path allows you to remain focused on the operating goals and position of the company, and not become distracted by more rapid -- and sometimes tangential -- development cycles.
Either way -- really nice piece!
R
Smart analysis. In particular, I'm drawn to the idea of Facebook taking a step out of the walled garden into the open web... Which is a tactic that has created a diverse set of revenue opportunities for Google over the years, and is what (in some ways) makes them the absolute beast they are today. Kudos to you for thinking outside of the box.
"Neo" according to this comment right here.
@Francisco Dao It's funny you say that, because I was thinking about it last night (totally PC) and was struck by the similarities of the current angel funding rush and the mortgage/default-credit swap fiasco that brought down the economy. I know it sounds like hyperbole but think of it like this: Both instances saw intelligent (dare I say, very intelligent) individuals making bets with other people's money that they knew were built on very little value (if any at all), but predicted on the fact that a small group of other investors had in fact made a shi*t ton of money making those very same bets... And even better, they were willing to dump a bunch of money into properties with at best tangential hard value, and hope that said property was sold to someone else before it crashed and burned.
Maybe I'm reaching here, but to me it just seems very strange that we have, in both situations you have good money, handled by intelligent investors, who are making bets based on values that are not derived by actual products, revenue or customers but by other speculators... something that in both situations, creates a weird cycle of value in commodities that eventually goes... :(
Really well articulate perspective. I'm surprised by all of the negative feedback in the comments -- not sure how the article is aggressive or misleading at all -- although my guess is that many of them are MVP devotees (just a guess). Either way, I'm interested to see what you (Francisco) would say is an alternative to the current funding paradigm (angel heavy + series A crunch + huge multiples going to angels)? (aka, "Cool, I agree with you, but what SHOULD Fred & co do?)