May 22nd, 2007
CBS Acquires Wallstrip Instead Of Creating It
What’s striking about the news that CBS has acquired the video blog Wallstrip (congratulations, Howard) is not that a content startup can get successfully acquired, but rather that CBS had to buy it rather than build it. Here’s how Fred Wilson describes the startup process that Howard Lindzon pursued for Wallstrip:
He got on a plane, came to NYC, hired a couple of awesome video producers named Adam and Jeff (aka Bright Red Pictures), they hired a wonderful host named Lindsay, and Howard also roped me and a bunch of other bloggers into helping him fund the show. He set out to make a funny short video about Wall Street five days a week for less than $1000 per show. Adam and Jeff figured out how to do that and they’ve been online every work day since October 16th of last year.
Along the way Howard, Adam, Jeff, Lindsay, and a few other brave souls they hired figured out a bunch of stuff that is key to a successful web video show. Like how to get the show on every video service quickly and easily. How to tag and promote the show on each and every service so it actually gets seen. How to measure and track all the views. How to reconcile all the different measurements you get. How to get subscribers in iTunes, FeedBurner, and YouTube. How to make a web site that communicates what the show is quickly and easily. How to do advertising in a way that doesn’t get in the way of the viewer. How to get the show indexed by ticker in the major finance portals. And most of all, how to keep it short, fun, and funny.
The question this raises for me is — why can’t big media companies innovate like this? It’s not a matter of putting huge amounts of capital at risk, which is traditionally the province of venture-backed startups. This is extremely low cost! And it’s not that big media companies aren’t trying to innovate, i.e. this isn’t the over-played “old media doesn’t get it” argument. And I’m not suggesting that a big media company has to succeed at launching the next MySpace or YouTube in order to succeed at being innovative (many are in fact trying). But original content is supposed to be what companies like CBS do best.
It will be very telling to see where the next successful content play like Wallstrip originates from.
Topics: Blogs | Online Video
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Very nice of you. You know I love your blog so this is something. Thanks Scott.
Howard, the congratulations are all very well deserved — you showed the big boys how it’s done.
Scott,
I think it’s smart for CBS to be reactive early. The west coast counts out old media. the west coast is wrong. Groupthink. The east coast keeps making cash hand over fist while the west coast blogs about them being dead.
I think what we did is great for everybody.
Old Media’s dial is very large and very hard to move. Wallstrip on Oct. 16 couldn’t move the dial. Today’s Wallstrip clearly can.
was buying Wallstrip, a creator of online content targeted to the finance vertical, the argument that TV companies can simply create (or should create) programming for the Web both loses and gains some momentum. Scott Karp touches on this in his post
CBS Acquires Wallstrip Instead Of Creating It 12:55 PM EDT, May 22, 2007 via Publishing 2.0
CBS Acquires Wallstrip Instead Of Creating It
[…] past week, CBS acquired video blog Wallstrip. Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 walked through the startup process and asked: The question this raises for me is — why can’t big media companies innovate like this? For […]
This past week, CBS acquired video blog Wallstrip. Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 walked through the startup process and asked: The question this raises for me is — why can’t big media companies innovate like this? For newspapers, the problem isn’t necessarily that they can’t innovate, although for many newspapers, product innovation isn’t necessarily one of their
Last week, Wallstrip was officially acquired by CBS. Fred Wilson (A VC) and Scott Karp (Publishing 2.0) both give interesting takes on it that have more to say about it than I do, so take a look: A VC’s take Publishing 2.0’s take I will make a quick comment: it strikes me that many of the acquisitions out there in techland are really about acquiring talent and leadership for areas of interest. Giant acquisitions aside, I’m seeing a lot of companies look around, identify
acquisition of WallStrip, and now the acquisition of Last.fm, the popular social music site (maybe this is why Last.fm didn’t have time to launch its application on Facebook Platform).
acquisition of WallStrip, and now the acquisition of Last.fm, the popular social music site (maybe this is why Last.fm didn’t have time to launch its application on Facebook Platform).
CBS sure has been walking the walk of a savvy digital media company, with the launch of CBS Interactive Audience Network, the acquisition of WallStrip, and now the acquisition of Last.fm, the popular social music site (maybe this is why Last.fm didn’t have time to launch its application on Facebook Platform). The CBS brand is associated with broadcast TV, but CBS also happens to own the largest