| Tue, Jun 16, 2009 |
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Microsoft To Scale Back Its YouTube Rival Soapbox
Two years after making a strategic decision to launch a user-generated video upload service of its own rather than buy another site, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is pulling back from the market. Microsoft Corporate Vice President Erik Jorgensen tells CNET that the company is rethinking the strategy around the service it launched—Soapbox. Rather than continue to offer a wide selection of uploaded videos, Microsoft wants to create a “forum where bloggers and citizen journalists can post videos relevant to areas in which MSN focuses, categories like entertainment, lifestyle and finance”—if it keeps the service up at all. Jorgensen says, “We haven’t decided whether you just continue to support it or whether it is too expensive and out of our focus to do.” A spokeswoman said that Microsoft did not have anything to add to Jorgensen’s remarks (We have an interview scheduled with Jorgensen Wednesday and will update if we learn more).
Microsoft was reportedly in the hunt for YouTube several years ago but when Google (NSDQ: GOOG) ended up purchasing the site in October 2006, Microsoft put out a statement saying that while it had “evaluated acquiring this type of technology several months ago” it had decided that building its own video-sharing service would be “a more cost-effective way to compete in this new space.” It certainly has been more cost-effective, considering that in addition to the $1.65 billion Google spent to buy YouTube, the site is reportedly on track to lose nearly $500 million this year. However, Soapbox has never been a hit for Microsoft. comScore (NSDQ: SCOR), for instance, said that Microsoft sites had 1.7 percent of the total market for online video in April, while Google had 40.7 percent (mostly from YouTube). And looking at both services today, it’s easy to see how Microsoft may have been a little discouraged with the current state of its site. Only 22 videos were uploaded there over the last hour.
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Microsoft To Scale Back Its YouTube-Rival Soapbox
Two years after making a strategic decision to launch a user-generated video upload service of its own rather than buy another site, Microsoft is pulling back from the market. Microsoft Corporate Vice President Erik Jorgensen tells CNET that the company is rethinking the strategy around the service it launched—Soapbox. Rather than continue to offer a wide selection of uploaded videos, Microsoft wants to create a “forum where bloggers and citizen journalists can post videos relevant to areas in which MSN focuses, categories like entertainment, lifestyle and finance”—if it keeps the service up at all. Jorgensen says, “We haven’t decided whether you just continue to support it or whether it is too expensive and out of our focus to do.” A spokeswoman said that Microsoft did not have anything to add to Jorgensen’s remarks (We have an interview scheduled with Jorgensen Wednesday and will update if we learn more).
Microsoft was reportedly in the hunt for YouTube several years ago but when Google (NSDQ: GOOG) ended up purchasing the site in October 2006, Microsoft put out a statement saying that while it had “evaluated acquiring this type of technology several months ago” it had decided that building its own video-sharing service would be “a more cost-effective way to compete in this new space.” It certainly has been more cost-effective, considering that in addition to the $1.65 billion Google spent to buy YouTube, the site is reportedly on track to lose nearly $500 million this year. However, Soapbox has never been a hit for Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT). comScore (NSDQ: SCOR), for instance, said that Microsoft sites had 1.7 percent of the total market for online video in April, while Google had 40.7 percent (mostly from YouTube). And looking at both services today, it’s easy to see how Microsoft may have been a little discouraged with the current state of its site. Only 22 videos were uploaded there over the last hour.
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Hirschorn: The Economist Benefited From Being Semi Competent About the Web
Nevermind the irony that a monthly piece in The Atlantic tries to explain the continued rise of The Economist (and by that token, also rest of the media’s continued dissection of why that’s happening). Michael Hirschorn writes an essay explaining why the British magazine is thriving while Time and Newsweek are in the inexorable state of decline despite their frenzied efforts. This quote explains it well [I have transposed some lines for clarity]: “By repositioning themselves as repositories of commentary and long-form reporting—much like this magazine, it’s worth noting, which has never delivered impressive profit margins—the American newsweeklies are going away from precisely the thing that has propelled The Economist’s rise: its status as a humble digest, with a consistent authorial voice, that covers absolutely everything that you need to be informed about…The Economist has reached its current level of influence and importance because it is, in every sense of the word, a true global digest for an age when the amount of undigested, undigestible information online continues to metastasize. And that’s a very good place to be in 2009.”
But the more intriguing analysis is about the mag’s continued lack of isolation online, and Hirschorn’s take on it: “While other publications whore themselves to Google (NSDQ: GOOG), The Huffington Post, and the Drudge Report, almost no one links to The Economist. It sits primly apart from the orgy of link love elsewhere on the Web.” His point: by not whoring itself out completely on the Web, people value its print product more, while the opposite has happened at Time and Newsweek: they have succeeded to a larger extent online, as the print version declines.
Besides the mag’s efforts with Economist.com, the group company did try messing with the social web platform, and spent £100,000 on it in 2007 to no end result. That does reinforce the semi-competent part that Hirschorn talks about in the story, and in the video about his column, below, after the jump:
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paidContent.org
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Hirschorn: The Economist Benefited From Being Semi Competent About the Web
Nevermind the marginal irony that a monthly piece in The Atlantic tries to explain the continued rise of The Economist (and by that token, also rest of the media’s continued dissection of why that’s happening). Michael Hirschorn writes an essay explaining why the British magazine is thriving while Time and Newsweek are in the inexorable state of decline despite their frenzied efforts. This quote explains it well [I have transposed some lines for clarity]: “By repositioning themselves as repositories of commentary and long-form reporting—much like this magazine, it’s worth noting, which has never delivered impressive profit margins—the American newsweeklies are going away from precisely the thing that has propelled The Economist’s rise: its status as a humble digest, with a consistent authorial voice, that covers absolutely everything that you need to be informed about…The Economist has reached its current level of influence and importance because it is, in every sense of the word, a true global digest for an age when the amount of undigested, undigestible information online continues to metastasize. And that’s a very good place to be in 2009.”
But the more intriguing analysis is about the mag’s continued lack of isolation online, and Hirschorn’s take on it: “While other publications whore themselves to Google (NSDQ: GOOG), The Huffington Post, and the Drudge Report, almost no one links to The Economist. It sits primly apart from the orgy of link love elsewhere on the Web.” His point: by not whoring itself out completely on the Web, people value its print product more, while the opposite has happened at Time and Newsweek: they have succeeded to a larger extent online, as the print declines.
Besides the mag’s efforts with Economist.com, the group company did one try messing with the social web platform, and spent £100,000 on it in 2007 to no end-result. That dies reinforce the semi-competent part that Hirschorn talks about in the story, and in the video about his column, below, after the jump:
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Musictoob Launches Linking Tool For Bloggers; Brings On First Outside Investor
Pop music news and gossip site Musictoob thinks it has found a way for some aggregators to get around accusations of stealing content. The site has launched a new tool that lets any blogger link to outside stories, which then show up under the blogger’s URL but are still hosted on the site of the original publisher. Musictoob says that both the blogger and the site he or she links to register page views (A small frame also shows up on the top of the page. Click on the thumbnail to the right for an example). “Everybody who comes to the party gets rewarded,” says Michael Rovner, the general manager of Musictoob. “It’s actually loading—it’s not us stealing page views.” Musictoob is using the service, which it calls the Tuna Platform, on its own site—and it’s also now giving it away for free.
If it catches on, plans are in the works for a paid option for “power users and corporations.” The benefits are obvious for bloggers (who can keep visitors on their sites for longer) but less obvious to those being linked to who might not want to share their page views, although Rovner insists they’ll be okay with it because they’re still getting hits. (He contrasts that with a service like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Reader, which uses a site’s content but doesn’t necessarily bring it page views—or traditional frames—like the ones that generated controversy for Digg earlier this year—which he admits basically “hijack” a site’s traffic).
It’s far from Musictoob’s core business—producing music-related content—but Rovner said the company developed the Tuna Platform internally while “we were playing around with different ideas” and decided it might as well distribute it. He added that six-month-old Musictoob.com is “thriving” despite the recession. The company generated its first profit in April—and just brought on its first outside investor, former *AOL* U.K. marketing chief Tobin Ireland. The site brings in revenue via ad sales and also an events series. It’s also syndicating some content to Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Music and is beginning to make some video content it hopes to sell to big media outlets. The company is also adding some big names to its board including former HMV (LSE: HMV) CEO Robin Miller.
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