Disqus - Latest Comments for rseidman

Re: If The Message Is Important, It Will Find Me

rseidman — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:43:12 -0000

Some of these comments have me wanting to mash up a "Leave Fred Wilson alone!!!!" video. :-) I am surprised at the tone of some of the comments. I think perhaps people took it to an extreme with the quote of "Important information will find me" and extended that to the (perhaps logical in some alternate universe) extent of "...so I don't have to do ANYTHING!".

Fred's message was pretty simple and he wrote it clearly. He can't respond to every e-mail, blog comment, blog post referencing one of his posts, tweets, etc. He's not declaring any kind of bankruptcy, he's simply accepting the truth that it would be impossible to stay on top of all of that, so he's not making it a high priority to even try. That seems completely sane to me.

Fred is NOT going to stop actively seeking out information, and the very important information that he is NOT seeking out, WILL still find him if it's truly very important.

Re: Social Media Campaign Gives NBC’s Chuck a Fighting Chance

Mon, 04 May 2009 18:15:46 -0000

Oh and sorry one addition to my previous comment - I should say that I think the "positive mental effect on the execs and the advertisers" would hopefully be that at least the show has SOME potential to grow in the ratings over time if the positive buzz gets around after a while. At the very least, it's a steady show for NBC, even if the ratings are not out of this world.

Re: Social Media Campaign Gives NBC’s Chuck a Fighting Chance

Mon, 04 May 2009 18:05:12 -0000

I bought a $5 footlong last Monday too, but I really had no expectations about the campaign having an effect on the ratings for the finale. All I was hoping for is that it would help get the word out on the street that people actually care about this show. And it definitely did reach that goal. While I know that fan campaigns don't mean much in terms of the bottom line of renewal, I DO think that if no one had even spoken a word about Chuck in the past few weeks, Chuck's chances of renewal would have been a little bit lower. It wouldn't have even been on people's radars at all if the fans and critics hadn't have gotten out there and rallied for it.

I think that the fans and critics making themselves heard at least gives NBC reassurance that SOMEONE out there gives a crap (I know they do listen to critics at least to SOME extent, because they let The Office and 30 Rock stick around back when no one was watching). I do agree with Robert that "if Chuck comes back, it's because Warner Brothers (studio that produces Chuck) offered it at a price NBC liked." However, the fact that NBC now knows that people/critics out there care must at LEAST put one point on the "Pro" side of their Pros and Cons list!! It has to have some sort of positive mental effect on the execs and the advertisers.

Oh well, I am now just incredibly frustrated with NBC for dragging this out even longer for us now. I can't help but think there is something shady going on when they just leave us in the dark like this. Very maddening.

Re: Social Media Campaign Gives NBC’s Chuck a Fighting Chance

Bryan Pick — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:02:46 -0000

Robert - Hard to say whether it had an effect on the finale. Other shows were mostly sinking from the previous week's numbers, but Chuck stayed steady.
There's also some value in showing value to sponsors who are, after all, paying for the show, and showing the network that they have high viewer engagement.

While it's ultimately going to require more viewers to save the show, I think the show can do better if it's not crushed by bad luck (writer's strike, and Obama pre-empting the show right after NBC's heavy Super Bowl promotion) and sharing a time slot with House, Dancing With The Stars, BBT (which has the exact same target audience), HIMYM, and (to some extent) Gossip Girl.
Give it a little breathing room and it'll capture the demographic. The fans love it, the critics love it, it just needs exposure.

(sorry for the re-post, meant to hit Reply)

Re: Social Media Campaign Gives NBC’s Chuck a Fighting Chance

Robert Seidman — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:02:29 -0000

whoa, I'm not used to a post on Chuck that doesn't have a gazillion comments. So let me chime in (especially since a surge of Chuck fans knocked our site out of commission). Josh Bernoff is correct. The fan campaign (and I too bought a $5 foot long) had no impact on the ratings for Chuck's season two finale. There are plenty of shows where the amount of Internet coverage/hype/fan support does not jibe with the TV viewership. Among them, Gossip Girl, Damages, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, it was the same with Battlestar Galactica too.

I think this particular fan campaign was pretty cool in that at least they got a meal out of it! But, while cool, fan campaigns rarely seem effective at saving shows, and after Jericho, I think it will be a while. If Chuck comes back, its because Warner Brothers (studio that produces Chuck) offered it at a price NBC liked, not because of any fan campaign.

Re: My State of Social Media

rseidman — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:53:20 -0000

Nice post, Mike. It's still not clear to me that Twitter won't be the next pet rock or Livestrong bracelet, but it is clear that social networking in general isn't going away. The issues you describe won't either, because they are not technology driven so much as human nature driven. Technology usually magnifies certain aspects of human nature rather than changing it. Social networking in a lot of ways gives people at least the illusion of control, and for many, even the illusion is very powerful.

BTW, if you really want to build one-to-one relationships, I'd strongly encourage putting your e-mail and phone number directly on your "contact" page. The e-mail can be entered in ways that spammers can't scrape it. Your phone will not ring non-stop, and your e-mail box won't overflow, but over time you will build some good relationships by doing so.

Re: The Rising Power Of Social Media As A Traffic Driver

rseidman — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:09:58 -0000

I think you're wrong if you think organic posting of links to isn't occurring on Facebook. When you see the stories about perezhilton.com now getting more traffic from Facebook thant Google, almost all of the linking seems to be organic rather than anything he worked hard to orchestrate.

Clearly there is value in the social linking, but I think Arrington's post demonstrates very well that it's probably not worth investing much effort on Twitter *if* your primary goal is traffic generation. it's very easy to send links to Twitter without investing very much time, but based on Arrington's post, even as one of the biggest accounts on Twitter, Techcrunch is probably only getting around 2% of its traffic from it.

Fortunately, I think most publishers (including TechCrunch) are in the space of prioritizing content creation over investing lots of energy trying to drive traffic from social networks. Ultimately, it seems that focus still results in increasing traffic from social networks.

Re: rizzn's socnets: Why Being a “Hit” on The Internet Matters. Now.

rseidman — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:15:02 -0000

With all due respect, you are wrong :-) I suppose the headline was a bit misleading since I was only discussing downloads of television shows, and not music.

I never mentioned radio, or music. I was also not referring to video content in general, but specifically television shows, but I called that out pretty specifically. There were some posts on the net of the nature of "Dollhouse was a TV Dud, but an Internet Hit", and my post was addressing that being an internet hit isn't a big deal (financially) to the television studios right now.

Music is a different animal with a very different cost structure, and a very different revenue model than TV shows, so while I agree with what you wrote about Radiohead, I don't think it's relevant or a good comparison to television shows. Figure it probably cost FOX's studio division $10 million or more to get the pilot episode of Dollhouse on air and that subsequent episodes cost in the neighborhood of $3 million for the studio to produce. It's a cost structure that requires huge scale.

That is not to say that the Internet won't wreak havoc with television business models and that models won't have to change as a result. They will, as a result of the Internet and technology in general. But that doesn't change Dollhouse being #1 on iTunes being almost meaningless in terms of revenue to the studio.

Re: My focus group of one

rseidman — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:06:28 -0000

One Advertising Age columnist (link below) has a bit of a different take on HuffPo. HuffPo's traffic, not surprisingly is way down post election, but the Jan-August revenues, if true or even in the right ballpark, are downright depressing. Other than salesmanship and fundraising (both very important) it doesn't seem very well positioned.

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=...

Re: louisgray.com: From Zero to Xing: Socialmedian's 2008 Drive to Acquisition

louismg — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 02:47:07 -0000

I have a hard time believing the traffic statistics for practically
anything any more. I believe that Socialmedian and FriendFeed are
undercounted in visitor statistics, given I think I know how much
traffic my own site gets. Yes, Socialmedian got a good offer, but it's
also a result of the technology and the platform as much as its
current user base.

Re: louisgray.com: From Zero to Xing: Socialmedian's 2008 Drive to Acquisition

rseidman — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:40:17 -0000

It just goes to show that "good salesmanship" quite often trumps, well, everything. If you trust Quantcast's measurement (which I do after a year+ using it, and Social Median is directly measured), the acquiring price is absolutely stunning.

Despite that *well* less than 100,000 people regularly use Social Median, they got $7.5 million...that's a very impressive transaction. The return is outstanding, especially given the well less than a million page views a month. I think I had it right, and wrong all at the same time :-)

Re: Trading Analog Dollars For Digital Pennies

rseidman — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:01:51 -0000

Fred, I can't really make a good case that TV advertising is superior to other forms of advertising, but "perception is reality" seems to be at play there. Can that change? Absolutely. It's not going to be as speedy of a transormation as the New York Jets experienced year over year though.

We're many years away from the Internet being the mechanism for broadcasting live events seen by 10 million and more (potentially many, many more factoring worldwide viewing).

If you take the 113 or so million television households in the US, there is zero incremental cost to NBC to add a million, five million or 100 million more viewers. That's true whether it's from the installed base of broadcast, satellite or cable viewers. When 100+ million wind up seeing all or part of the Super Bowl there's no incremental cost for NBC. But because of the way bandwidth and distribution works on the Internet, the differences between "broadcasting" a live event to 100,000, a million, ten million and a hundred million are massive.

TV's business model is certainly going to have to change. But in order for the Internet to become the primary distribution outlet for live or long form video content, its business model must change as well.

Re: Why The iTouch Is Inevitable

kyle_s — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:16:31 -0000

I agree with Robert. The marginal cost of adding the headphone jack and extra hardware to the iPoud Touch is probably very low - I doubt they could make money at a $150 price point unless they sell a whole lot of them. Let's say both devices existed - a $150 tablet and a $230 iPod. Being able to pay $80 for all the additional functionality you'd get seems like a bargain.

Re: Why The iTouch Is Inevitable

rseidman — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:06:20 -0000

if it were $99, yes. But with the current product/manufacturing I don't think it could be done for less than $179. By the time your proposed device is available for $99 the iPod Touch won't cost much more than that either.

Re: Why The iTouch Is Inevitable

rseidman — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:04:20 -0000

I think I made my point badly (crabasa may have made it better). My point is that device probably winds up costing only a little less than the iPod touch for the reasons crabasa states. And let's say the pricing is more significantly different -- say $149 vs. $229. I don't see that changing the world so much that it unleashes a wave of creativity that isn't already happening.

Apple wants to suck you into their other stuff, and I don't hold that against them -- but hopefully things get to a point someday where the iPod Touch is $100. Apple *has* unleashed a wave of creativity with the current devices. I could certainly be wrong, but I don't see stripping away the iPod functionality and hard drive as substantially reducing the cost enough to change the level of creativity.

Re: Why The iTouch Is Inevitable

fredwilson — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:55:14 -0000

this is not about me Robert. this is about third party developers. the point i am making, and apparently making badly, is that apple would unleash a wave of creativity if they put out an iTouch. think about the things you could do with it.

Re: Why The iTouch Is Inevitable

rseidman — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:50:37 -0000

You want the iTouch because you're a purist. But why should Apple make it?

If I'm Steve Jobs, I say to you, "Fred, you're never freaking happy! I give you a wonderful multi-purpose device that already costs $170 less than your clunky, one-dimensional Sonos controller and all you do is whine about making something that doesn't have the hard drive or iPod functionality! It would probably only cost us $50 or so less to make them, and we'd sell so few of them we'd basically have to sell them at the same price! You and the other 85 Sonos owners are better off buying an iPod touch than a new controller for the Sonos. So WTF!? If you don't like all that other stuff, just ignore it...or download some of the free games from the app store and have fun!"

Re: FriendFeed and Politics

rseidman — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:05:42 -0000

This is one of those weird situations where I find myself agreeing with Duncan and Mona (who voice similar views) but also with Cyndy, who has a very different view.

I'm not a particular fan of cliques or of mob mentality, both of which are likely to show up anywhere lots of people aggregate (Internet, FriendFeed). I don't blame FriendFeed for this, I blame people :-) FriendFeed is just particularly good at aggregating discussion. It showcases people both at their best, and their worst, which sometimes includes nasty personal attacks. It is unfortunate, but it also just seems to be the nature of the beast.

But I'm also with Cyndy on at least two points. I share her bias that If you're going to quit, just stop participating. Don't make a big production over it. Just stop. And I also agree that if some of what you like to discuss are heated, polarizing topics, you must prepare for and accept that the consequences won't always be pretty.

Re: I Guess I'm Doing Something Wrong

rseidman — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:00:19 -0000

If you're doing something wrong then I am the biggest screw up EVER. Of course relative to you that is almost certainly true anyway, but we’re over 100K uniques and via advertising --- any advertising -- I can’t imagine generating more than $50K in revenue even pushing it hard – and that would be more than 10X what we’d get via Adsense.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) I am not yet convinced we don't have much better prospects via sponsorships.

I'm glad though that *you* are not in this for the advertising revenue :-)

Re: louisgray.com: Statistics Are Your Friend, Even When They're Bad

rseidman — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:46:31 -0000

I didn't see the Mint.com study, but I'll check it out. I agree with you that all bounces aren't bad and sometimes indicate something good. People coming to the site to find out, for example, what the ratings for Law & Order were the night before, get the information quickly and are satisfied. We'd of course like it if they stuck around and checked out more stuff, but to the degree that we provided them the info they wanted, we're happy -- even if they only stuck around few seconds.

Re: louisgray.com: Blogs' Never-Ending Battle of Page Views vs. Conversation

ariherzog — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:21:44 -0000

Robert, you are correct that if 10,000 sources have the same or similar content, the uphill battle to be on top will be slow.... but by the same token, competition is healthy. As long as people are talking about other people, linking to each other, and providing unique perspective, thereby narrowing the battlefield and strengthening the social fabric, how are 10,000 perspectives on the same topic a bad thing?

Re: louisgray.com: Blogs' Never-Ending Battle of Page Views vs. Conversation

rseidman — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:48:24 -0000

I should've been more specific. Page views matter more to anyone who is trying to make a living off their blog. I agree, if that's not the case they only matter more if you let them!

Still, even for those trying to make a living from their blogs, I think there are more important priorities than focusing on getting the Digg home page. it's just an opinion, but even if you do prioritize pageviews, prioritizing them via traffic from Digg, etc. in the longer-term is not necessarily the route to building sustainable traffic from repeat visitors (which wind up amounting to a lot of page views).

Even when monetizing the traffic is an objective, having fun should (I think) also be a goal. For me, it's a lot more fun when there's dialog, not only between reader and blogger, but between the readers themselves.

Re: louisgray.com: Blogs' Never-Ending Battle of Page Views vs. Conversation

louismg — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:37:43 -0000

Page views only matter more than conversation if you let them. I'd rather have some regular folks who come back and spur discussion, ideas and introduce me to new technology than get a one-day high caloric sugar rush from reaching the Digg front page.

Re: louisgray.com: Blogs' Never-Ending Battle of Page Views vs. Conversation

rseidman — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:01:53 -0000

Is there really a debate or are people just being silly? Page views matter more than conversation unless your conversations are generating a lot of pageviews! there are sites where that certainly happens, but not very many as a %.

It seems quite often there is huge convergence between blogging out of passion and blogging for a living to the point where it's hard to tell the difference. Many of the most successful at blogging for a living originally were blogging out of passion. Louis, you may be blogging out of passion, but it still helps you professionally -- even if you are not blogging for a living. There are a lot of shades of gray (no pun intended!) here.

If you write about the same stuff that 10,000 other sites are writing about, of course the competition is going to fierce! And I think Charlie Anzman is right: you can only get so far via social media. If you need to rely on social media for traffic, that's probably not sustainable over the longer term.

Re: Nielsen Ratings Friday, August 29: Fox Wins Slow Night

rseidman — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 12:29:10 -0000

It is allegedly a sunrise though I personally can't vouch whether the camera was pointed east or west. The birds lead me to believe east, but, it's pretty either way!