Very interesting John Battelle-hosted conversation with Terry Semel, Yahoo CEO, at the conference. The difference between outlook and attitude between Semel and Barry Diller is stark. On the one hand, Diller's conversation yesterday was very much old-media, 20th century thinking. Semel on the other hand very much impressed me with his take on what is required for 21st century media. I'll write more detailed notes later, but here are some quick takeaways:
- Yahoo! is both a media and tech company and Semel said *both* are required for a 21st C media company.
- "Yahoo is all about content" --> user-generated, professional, and the future of what content may be (which Yahoo will try to take a leadership position in designing).
- on competing with Diller. They will compete in some verticals, but Yahoo will have a much broader selection.
- Y! is "creating a whole new experience" in media and Semel will judge Lloyd Braun on results in 12-18mths (i.e. not rushing to judgement)
- Lot of interesting talk on Y! competing with Google. Semel says Google has done great with search, but they don't have the pillars of Y! --> content, personalization, communications, shopping, etc.
- even though Google is "starting to look like more of a portal" (referencing all the things Google is doing currently), Semel rates Google as the #4 portal.
- mentions Google has lots of beta products and "so far don't seem to have a real plan"
- Y! monetizing better than Google, says Semel --> communications products and content are the 2 main forms of monetization
- "we'll always be more open than they [Google] are" --> Y! has/will have open platform; incl ability for people to publish on the Web
- big change on the Internet; deeper engagement, more time spent, more user satisfaction
- personalization, community, content on platforms, search --> Y! has "much richer experience" [than Goog search]
qst from audience (Dare from MSN): what's Y!'s biggest strength and competitors biggest weakness: Semel said Y! has much more diversified model, well-positioned for user-generated content, community, etc. Other companies [he meant Goog!] weakness is not positioning for that.
Next qst re user-generated content. Semel said that user-generated content is "of utmost importance" to Y! - "gigantic piece of what we do". He says "content in general is going to be more and more important"
- new media requires new paradigms, going forward. And Y! won't have to choose between user-generated and professional content - market/users will decide and Y!'s goal is to monetize as much as possible.
weblogsinc bought by AOL for between $20-35 million.
SocialText (the wiki company) is returning to open source.
PubSub has announced an open source structured blogging initiative.
Flock, the social browser, is expanding their beta. I went along with Mike and Fred from TechCrunch to check out their office, which is literally in a garage in Palo Alto. Mike has a great photo of one of the developers asleep there!
Very Start-Up 2.0 and I feel privileged to have seen that :-)
A whole lot more is happening, including a bunch of new Web 2.0 services debuted at the conference. TechCrunch and ZDNet both have extensive coverage. The ones getting most buzz in the hallways of the conference are Zimbra and Orb.
I'm running out of battery time on my laptop, so I'll have to wrap up coverage of the conference for now. It's been a very busy day, running from one workshop to the next, packing in like nerd sardines into the workshop rooms, schmoozing, filling up the brain with knowledge.
On a personal level, I met lots of people I've communicated with or worked with for a long time - e.g. Marc Canter, Josh Porter, Dick Costolo. It's been fantastic. And of course I've been to a bunch of workshops, two of which I've yet to write up (Open Source Infrastructure and Mash-up business models). The formal intro show is very professional and engaging. More later...
John Battelle is speaking to Barry Diller of IAC. John asked straight off: why did you buy Ask? Barry: search box would keep evolving and more convergence through it. They "plunged" into an arrangement with Ask. If they failed and didn't gain share, that's OK - because it (Ask) has "enormous promise". Barry says a lot of things to do: gather a lot of services together that is differentiated as possible. Features are appealing - if they can market them "noisely enough" then that's a way to gain market share. They have a lot of verticals, services, which they can link up to Ask.
John: Google is leader in the space and isn't losing share. What comes to mind when you think of Google?
Barry: they were first ones to clean the page up - it was a kind of genius. [this is not verbatim btw]. Basically says they're a great product.
John asks a question about being an "Internet Mogal". Barry talks about being "distribution agnostic". Things will come through the search box / convergence will create a potential total change-up of the players.
John asks about user-generated content and Barry's position on that. Barry says "there's not that much talent in the world". Talks about "editorship", people who have talent and expertise in entertainment space not going to be displaced by 18 million people making home videos (!!). John segues to Rupert Murdoch - "he's bought these things very cheap or they're worthless". Says Murdoch takes risk and is a risk-taker.
John asks his reaction on eBay buying Skype. Not the kind of deal he would make for his company. He says eBay's buy is speculative, but won't elaborate.
John asks about "net neutrality". Barry says it's about doing anything you want (re services), but can't get in the way of anyone else doing services.
qst: is future of IAC increasing distribution or increasing breadth?
Barry: we have lots of brands, could screw it up. Innovate. Only constrained by their own ideas.
qst: re dismissing microcontent, user-generated content. Speaking as a Media Mogal, not Internet Mogal?
Barry: we're talking about mass audiences, a system of entertainment. Entertainment, making tv or movie or game - going to be relatively few people doing that, due to not enough talent.
qst: how can minor internet players transform in new media world?
Barry: if you have a good idea on the internet, you have "so much more runway", more opportunities. Good ideas resonate. Nothing really stands in the way - unlike other forms of media, which have gatekeepers etc.
Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle are on stage now with the formal intro. Great setting, two big screens on both sides of the main stage - which is a nice emerald green design with huge golden lights above. Big crowd (of course). It's been a hectic day and a lot of (literal) buzz around.
Tim and John talk about "innovation in display" and assembly; a lot of companies will show that here. The conference will show what companies are doing with the web platform, talking to a lot of platform leaders. Issues that will be addressed: open vs closed, data models, future of entertainment, young users just coming to the platform.
Time: 1:30pm - 2:45pm
Panelists:
David Madelorot, VP Search Content, Yahoo! Search
Will Johnson, VP & GM, Yahoo! Publisher Network Online
Anne Frisbie, Sr. Director of Category Search Marketing, Yahoo!
David: ecosystem: publishers, users, advertisers; incorporated into mission statement; yahoo being glue in the middle; overarching vision: FUSE.
Find: re Search Subscriptions product
--> not just "free online content", but looking at deep content (eg sits behind reg'n wall)
--> how to open up deep web content: solution "search subscriptions"
Use: helping people use info (once they've found it). --> Yahoo search for creative commons service.
Share: how to narrow down search results; take advantage of others
research/my knowledge. --> My Web 2.0 ("social search")
--> leveraged Flickr and tagging.
Expand: in a lot of ways the most challenging. how much content is available offline (not available online)? eg books, greet speeches, music, etc. How to do it via search engine --> Open Content Alliance. Digitize major works (both books and multimedia). Different approach than other digitization efforts, esp re openness. Need to form relationships with others to use their content --> Open Content Alliance both public domain works and getting permission from copyright holders. Using common formats (html, adobe), not proprietary formats. Other search engines can spider the content etc. International content too.
Will Johnson
from Goto.com days; Yahoo acquired them (as Overture). focused on large publisher space --> helping them monetize their content.
New dymanics in publishing:
- small media re getting bigger --> blog networks
- Big media becoming smaller --> NY Times buys About.com; Newscorp and
myspaces
- Marketers becoming publishers
- Consumers too
--> opportunities to deliver broader publisher offerings: 360, Yahoo small business, MyYahoo feat. RSS, Y!Q
small subset of things Yahoo is building re publisher services.
Yahoo! Publisher Network - self-serve platform; beta program to extend distribution; same advert network (leveraging off their work with big publishers); competitive revenue --> this is about getting broader content to users.
Content distribution
--> monetize and drive traffic (get in Yahoo directory); yahoo maps
--> just the beginning - creating broader platform
example: search engine roundtable
--> ads now; then search; long-term hosting?
Niche content publishers
Publisher priorites: targeted content, build traffic etc, generate ad revenue
How Y! can help: ads, access content via APIs (eg Shopping) and related content
via Y!Q, drive traffic via paid search, rss buttons, web hosting
Anne Frisbie:
search offers an engaged audience; customers find u. (re marketers)
Web search #1 way consumers finding website
Company websites extremely influential to consumers now.
offline media plan integrated with online ("offline media drives online activity" --> more engagement
eg Yahoo: GM's pontaic adverts on The Apprentice; interested viewers go to search for more info --> eg search term "apprentice car" + associated terms spiked after show aired. GM had contextual ads next to search results, plus Yahoo Apprentice Car website.
Questions...
qst: Adsense-like program --> Will: publisher control a key tenet and "real differentiator"; eg users can define ad categories. more control over what shows on their page.
qst: financial writers recently hired - how will that impact publishers in publisher community (re search)? Dave: media team and search team operate separately. search team focused on delivering relevant content - regardless of whether it's yahoo writers or other publishers.
qst: blocking domains: Will: up to 200 today, but will be broadened even further.
Real-time blogging going on here...
Jeff Jarvis, President & Creative Director, Advance.net
Dick Costolo, CEO, Feedburner
Matt Cutts, Software Engineer, Google
Chas Edwards, Vice President, Sales & Market Development, Federated Media Publishing
Brian McAndrews, President and CEO, aQuantive
Mark Pincus, Founder, tribe.net
Time: 11:15am - 12:30pm
powerpoint about Distributed advertising
Intro by Jeff, then all the panelists introduced themselves.
"Ads can be a service" (Mark Cutts, Google)
A media person: Online space --> metrics coming along nicely; other media
spaces like what they see --> expectation of same metrics as online for other
forms of media. Metrics is getting much more sophisticated.
--> engagement: not eyeballs; how *deep* or how related or how interested was
consumer/user in an ad; how to measure engagement (for tv 2.0, video 2.0 etc)
Brian: experiment; easy to do in small pieces; targeted; branded advertisement big online now
Chas: tech issues can be solved relatively easy; hard qst is getting marketers comfortable; look at blogs that are doing things in media business, online, really well; higher loyalty than on tv etc; find publications that have tremendous audience affinities (turns out they're blogs)
Mark: CPA; b2b marketer can get to highly sophisticated, targeted markets now; whether its Google Adsense on an open one, marketers should be able to identify key blogs etc
Matt: experimentation is key; variety (of ads, how they're presented) makes a difference; allowing experimentation from publishers (e.g. bidding on adwords)
Mark: qst to Matt --> when will google open up the ad network (experiment)
Matt: it's definitely a priority; talks about resourcing; "freedom to tinker"
Jeff: serving up 4 times as much RSS as html; how to get money out of rss?
Dick: "we think we're fixing that"; circulation; rss as differentiated from the site --> rss feed users express explicit interest in the content site. eg a Mac site gets a very effective CPM on site, but in feed a very low CPM --> what will work for that audience is an ad for a Mac expo.
Jeff: all about relevance
Fred Wilson: reed's law (prof at MIT) --> each node becomes/forms its own network
Dick --> feeds into sell-side advertising a little bit. in a CPA world; other publishers can take that ad and use it. eg original advertiser gets a cut 3-4 rungs down the chain.
Ross Mayfield: cost per influence; social incentives for advertising are fucked up. "buyers will love this crap."
Jeff: publisher can take over the creative (eg Dell stuff he blogged about)
Audience qst: u can't let users create a brand (skeptical of value)
Jeff: brand is the trust.
Brian: buy-side data is very powerful info --> publisher doesn't have that
Jeff: why not open source that?
Brian: in CPM world, he's not going to let publishers know what kind of value it's being created... takes a crack at Apple market share as opposed to dell.
qst: user be more participatory; predictive analysis; how to give users an incentive?
Jeff et all: trust, transparency
Dick: advertising networks have to provide more value to publishers; eg aggregate stats that are valuable for everyone
Fred: privacy; real world thinks its creepy
Matt (google): opt-in eg to personalized search; different experimentation and networks (not just google); competition important (but he takes a swipe at Yahoo ads). If someone comes along and makes a better product than google adsense, that makes a better world. talks about ning.com and trying new solutions [experimentation is a big word in this workshop]
Brian: re relevance, onus on industry to educate people; next phase is brand phase and that's going to be more difficult.
Dick: re relevancy, it's hadr to separate out nefarious uses of such a technology; long time before it's introduced into rss (whether they want to hand over their 'attention'); eg amazon treasure box --> very scary thing for most people (how'd they know it was me); opting in.
Matt: adsense criticals: 1) network effect; 2) relevancy; 3) target the interest, not the user. value in serendipity. control to user (eg amazon opt out of interests)
qst: how to serve up ads that user doesn't know they're interested in?
Matt: networks; ton of room left for experimenting; lot of niches waiting to be explored
Brian: work to find better ways to measure brand.
qst: rich media ads
Dick: ads as content. eg podcast from digital photography company. eg bmw film stuff was first gen of that.
Lots of talk about video, tv, product placements.
qst: sponsorships around content vs advertising
Matt: eg lifehacker has a lot of commonality; disclosure really important (money is involved here, etc). lifehacker a good eg.
That's about it for this post. Will do other workshops and stuff over the next few days. Also have written notes to type and publish when I get time.
Yahoo! has bought upcoming.org, Andy Baio's events service:
"In just a few years, most of it spent on nights and weekends, the Upcoming team has built an excellent site with a loyal and growing following. Now that theyíve joined Yahoo!, together weíll build a social events platform that will integrate with our existing events offering and other areas of Y!, and will continue to support all web users in an open, participatory way."
Congrats Andy and partners!
Also announced today: Newsgator's acquisition of NetNewsWire. Om mentioned that NetNewsWire was one of my guesses a week or so ago, but I must admit my bet was more of a long shot. Oh well, perhaps Newsgator will buy a blog search engine some other time :-)
Lycos, search engine portal and owner of Wired Magazine, has announced its intention to rebrand as a media company. According to the press release Lycos has released a service called Planet, which enables its users to create "mini sites" that include photos, blogs, slideshows, animation, special effects and other multimedia. ClickZ referred to Planet as a "social interaction platform".
I love the press release headline: "NEW PLANETS DISCOVERED ON LYCOS, Revolutionary Interactive Platform Redefines Personal Expression". Yeeeeaa....
The Washington Post ends it story with this:
"Lycos, best known for its roots in the search business, is hoping to relaunch itself as a media company, eventually reaching out to self-publishing writers, artists and musicians, as well as major book publishers and entertainment studios to become a kind of Web-based studio for its 22 million-strong audience."
Sounds great - and very similar to what Yahoo! is doing with its media strategy. Read this excerpt from the ClickZ article and tell me if it sounds familiar:
"[Lycos'] vision will include search, but will hinge on the building, distributing and consuming of content. Some of that content will be user-generated, from blogs on Lycos' Tripod and Angelfire networks. Other content will be created by Lycos or will come from strategic partners like record labels, book publishers, and movie studios."
I suppose this is a natural extension for a search company that was/is big on content portals and owns Wired, so it'll be interesting to watch Lycos' progress. I think Yahoo! has a more organic and exciting approach to new media generation and distribution, with greater use of Web 2.0 technologies such as RSS and APIs. But it's an open market right now.
My post yesterday asking if Bloglines has dropped the ball in the web-based RSS Aggregator market provoked some interesting responses. Among them were a couple of comments from Jim Lanzone, Senior VP of Search Properties at Ask Jeeves. In his second comment Jim asked for more feedback from people who want Bloglines to improve. Jim wrote:
"...now's a good time to let us know what features you want us to add to make Bloglines better and easier.
Whoever wants to post their Top 5 list for Bloglines here, we're all ears."
I think that's a great idea, but I'd like to open it up to other web-based RSS Aggregators too. If you want to give Bloglines, Rojo, or any other web-based RSS Aggregator advice on features you want to see - here's the place to do it. I know that senior management at both Bloglines and Rojo are watching this thread, so your comments will definitely be taken on board by them. I'm sure that's true of other Aggregator companies too.
Note that for the sake of keeping this conversation focused, this is only about web-based RSS Aggregators - not desktop apps. We'll deal with the latter another time.
So please click here to give your suggestions to Bloglines, Rojo and others.
Update, 4/10/05: Keep the comments coming. 22 at this point, but it'd be good to get some more for Rojo and the other web-based aggregators.
