| 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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For Yahoo Newspaper Consortium Members, Targeting Is Now The Draw, Not Job Ads
For websites still joining ad alliances like the Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Newspaper Consortium and quadrantONE, the appeal is in the targeting and ad assistance—not the job listings. For the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium, HotJobs was initially a main selling point, but with unemployment currently at 9.1 percent, job ads aren’t so hot these days. None of the five new consortium members have signed on for the HotJobs service. Instead, the newspapers all cited a desire to access Yahoo’s targeted inventory and online ad saleforce training.
The consortium’s members have been awaiting the rollout of Yahoo’s APT display ad targeting and distribution service, which has been slower to materialize than they expected.
Since Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz took her post in January, the company has been aggressively looking at which parts of Yahoo’s portfolio it needs to prune. So far, the fate of HotJobs, which Yahoo bought in 2002, remains uncertain. One option is for the newspaper members to buy HotJobs and divide the revenues among themselves. While a jobs site might not seem too attractive for struggling newspaper companies right now, when the economy turns around, online recruitment could be lucrative again, especially in the case of an established brand like HotJobs. Still, among the big three—Monster.com and CareerBuilder being the other two—there is likely to be some consolidation when the economy turns around. And far from writing HotJobs off, Yahoo sources tell us that the company is planning to roll out some new tools for the jobs site designed to help users deal with issues related to the recession. The company declined to offer details about the new HotJobs features, but said the goal was to make it more appealing to newspapers and to users in general.More after the jump
As Outsell’s Ken Doctor told me, recruitment traditionally offers the highest margins of all newspaper classifieds, although help-wanted ads have been down more than 50 percent year-over year since Q408. The expectation is that these great losses will finally slow by the latter half of the year. “Yahoo HotJobs is a key online sales category for news publishers, increasingly being sold on its pure online value and less on its bundled value, a transition that makes sense given job placers and job seekers acceptance of the web as the go-to ad medium,” Doctor said. “Given the jobs environment, it’s harder for news companies to justify an immediate investment in buying HotJobs, given how constrained their cashflows are. Yet, given its longer-term strategic fit, it makes sense.”
HotJobs does have some selling points. For example, it had 17 million users, per Comscore (NSDQ: SCOR), in April, making it the number two jobs site behind the Tribune-, Gannett-, McClatchy-owned CareerBuilder’s 23 million monthly uniques. Right now, selling HotJobs would provide a quick cash infusion and fit with Bartz’s strategy of getting Yahoo to concentrate on its core. Still, a number of original consortium members have said that they have some concern about what the loss of HotJobs would mean to the alliance, though most acknowledge that they could still use the service no matter who owns it. As a rep for Freedom Communications, one of the newest consortium members, told paidContent earlier today, the publisher will maintain its agreement with HotJobs’ rival Monster.com and will not sign on with the Yahoo jobs site. “Our agreement is about giving content on Freedom sites more visibility, and utilizing APT to help advertising customers experience a better return on their investments,” said Freedom rep Eric Morgan.
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paidContent.org
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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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paidContent.org
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For Yahoo Newspaper Consortium Members, Targeting Is Now The Draw, Not Job Ads
For websites still joining ad alliances like the Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Newspaper Consortium and quadrantONE, the appeal is in the targeting and ad assistance—not the job listings. For the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium, HotJobs was initially a main selling point, but with unemployment currently at 9.1 percent, job ads aren’t so hot these days. None of the five new consortium members have signed on for the HotJobs service. Instead, the newspapers all cited a desire to access Yahoo’s targeted inventory and online ad saleforce training.
The consortium’s members have been awaiting the rollout of Yahoo’s APT display ad targeting and distribution service, which has been slower to materialize than they expected. Yahoo sources tell us that the company is planning to roll out some new tools to help get newspaper members in the interim; the company didn’t offer any additional detail about those tools.
Since Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz took her post in January, the company has been aggressively looking at which parts of Yahoo’s portfolio it needs to prune. So far, the fate of HotJobs, which Yahoo bought in 2002, remains uncertain. One option is for the newspaper members to buy HotJobs and divide the revenues among themselves. While a jobs site might not seem too attractive for struggling newspaper companies right now, when the economy turns around, online recruitment could be lucrative again, especially in the case of an established brand like HotJobs. Still, among the big three—Monster.com and CareerBuilder being the other two—there is likely to be some consolidation when the economy turns around. More after the jump
As Outsell’s Ken Doctor told me, recruitment traditionally offers the highest margins of all newspaper classifieds, although help-wanted ads have been down more than 50 percent year-over year since Q408. The expectation is that these great losses will finally slow by the latter half of the year. “Yahoo HotJobs is a key online sales category for news publishers, increasingly being sold on its pure online value and less on its bundled value, a transition that makes sense given job placers and job seekers acceptance of the web as the go-to ad medium,” Doctor said. “Given the jobs environment, it’s harder for news companies to justify an immediate investment in buying HotJobs, given how constrained their cashflows are. Yet, given its longer-term strategic fit, it makes sense.”
HotJobs does have some selling points. For example, it had 17 million users, per Comscore (NSDQ: SCOR), in April, making it the number two jobs site behind the Tribune-, Gannett-, McClatchy-owned CareerBuilder’s 23 million monthly uniques. Right now, selling HotJobs would provide a quick cash infusion and fit with Bartz’s strategy of getting Yahoo to concentrate on its core. Still, a number of original consortium members have said that they have some concern about what the loss of HotJobs would mean to the alliance, though most acknowledge that they could still use the service no matter who owns it. As a rep for Freedom Communications, one of the newest consortium members, told paidContent earlier today, the publisher will maintain its agreement with HotJobs’ rival Monster.com and will not sign on with the Yahoo jobs site. “Our agreement is about giving content on Freedom sites more visibility, and utilizing APT to help advertising customers experience a better return on their investments,” said Freedom rep Eric Morgan.
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paidContent.org
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Yahoo Newspaper Consortium Adds Five Members
The possible sale of Yahoo’s HotJobs would be a huge blow for members of the Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Newspaper Consortium, as the alliance is the only source of help-wanted-ad revenue for nearly 200 papers. But that’s apparently not deterring papers from joining. The newspaper alliance announced five new members—Freedom Communications’ California flagship, The Orange County Register as well as The Gazette in Colorado Springs; the North Jersey Media Group’s The Record and Herald News; and The San Diego Union-Tribune. That gives the consortium 814 newspaper members, accounting for 51 percent of all Sunday circulation.
The Yahoo alliance has been one of the few bright spots for newspapers in recent months. A recent estimate by AdAge found that the two-and-a-half-year-old consortium sold $50 million in Yahoo ad inventory, with about “several million” dollars in sales being added each week. More after the jump
E.W. Scripps (NYSE: SSP), which list most newspapers has been struggling with online ad sales, has said that the consortium has contributed 30 percent to their online ad revenues in Q1, or roughly $800,000. Also, Cox Newspaper’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which, combined with Yahoo, cites comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) figures that indicate it has increased its online audience reach in its home city alone from 15 percent to 80 percent.
Still, with 592 newspapers in the consortium relying exclusively on HotJobs for help-wanted ads—an area that has been hit particularly hard as unemployment has approached 9 percent nationwide—many members have expressed some wariness about how this might affect the value of the consortium over time. Also, Yahoo has seen the rollout of its APT ad delivery and targeting system move more slowly than it would like. Currently, roughly 160 newspapers are now live on APT. During Yahoo’s Q1 earnings call in April, CEO Carol Bartz downplayed the delays in adding APT to its newspaper members, telling investors that there is no official “rollout” of the ad platform and that it is designed to be in a constant state of evolution. A Yahoo rep added that the APT integration plan is on track, with more newspapers signing on over the course of the year in order to accommodate the continuing growth in consortium membership.
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