What Scoble Has Learned About The Media Business
Jan 16th, 2008 | By James Lewin | Category: Digital Video Downloads, Internet TV, VideoWe reported earlier today that Robert Scoble was leaving PodTech to move to Fast Company.
In a post on his blog, Scoble explains why he is making the move:
“I don’t love doing much except for interviewing and blogging and my family. I’ve run the books at UserLand Software. I hated that. I’ve tried managing people at PodTech and found that I wasn’t particularly interested in doing more of it (which is one reason why Rocky’s going to play a key role in the development/production of the network, it’s important that we build a strong team, but I’d rather focus more of my energies on getting great content than on finding and keeping great people).”
He goes on to offer four things that he’s learned about media since working at PodTech:
- Content. This should be obvious, but you’ll see where I’m going with this point later. Key here is to make content that no one else has. Content that’s better quality. “Special” in some way. Gets viewers access to something they couldn’t otherwise get access to.
- Revenues. If you don’t have them, it’s hard to buy cameras, lights, microphones, or take the time to do things right. Yeah, you can bootstrap for a while like Rocketboom did in its early years, but at some point if you don’t have cash coming in you’ll need to find a real job and stop working on media production.
- Distribution. If no one sees your videos you won’t get revenues, so getting viewers/participants is key. Now, you can either get viewers by doing stunts (like Gawker Media did at CES) or you can get it by making deals to distribute your videos into places that have high viewership. Revision3, for instance, has reportedly made deals to distribute its videos into several airplane video systems. Mansuetto’s magazines have more than a million readers, which will make it easier to get people to come visit the new network.
- Scale. The SuperBowl has all the above three, right? But the place it really makes sense? Is part of a network. Why? Because then there’s more for audiences to engage with than just one football game a year. Also, there’s economies of scale since the camera crews can work on other stuff while they aren’t working on the Super Bowl.
Fans can watch for Scoble’s new work at the Fast Company site.