A small section of the domain community holds the view that “geodomains” are a BIG opportunity area and the “right” development strategy can lead to big bucks. For market validation, the most cited example is that of PalmSprings.com, a property owned & operated by the Castello brothers, who’re de-facto poster boys of the Geodomain business. It is widely believed that PalmSprings.com generates annual revenues of over a million dollars (Yes, USD!). Incredible, IMHO for a rather rudimentary site with an unmistakable 90’s look. Sure, the business model is genius.
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Shuhaib Shariff
Unstoppable Force meets Immovable Object
Filed under New Media …
Rupert Murdoch’s biggest gamble yet – Pay for Content!
In what could potentially be a game changer, media baron Rupert Murdoch has decided to charge a fee to online readers of his UK publications: The Times and its sister publication, The Sunday Times.
Content on the above portals will no longer be free.
Most analysts are baffled with this decision … online news publications have always offered online content for FREE and they’ve made their money from ADVERTISING. Charging a subscription fee for online news content is unheard off, and most media companies will not even attempt it for fear of loosing readership and thereby advertising. Off-course Murdock thinks differently.
In an interview recently he said “There isn’t enough advertising in this world to subsidize all web content. Few media companies are making profits from their presence online“
Very true, if you ask me.
Infact most media publications are struggling to make any money at all … some like The Tribune have gone bankrupt.
The problem is, with the emergence & domination of new media (led-by the big G) , Newspapers haven’t been able to figure out a viable business model. Giving premium content away for free and subsidizing it with online advertising doesn’t work; primarily because the revenues in the online advertising are a pittance and there’s just too much competition online for a relatively small subset of Advertisers.
Google’s monopoly in contextual content advertising is sickening. The last straw, I suppose is that Google’s only competitor “Yahoo Publisher Network” is slated to shutdown next month. Its game over for large publishers dependent solely on online advertising.
In this backdrop, I believe its good move by the old FOX to monetize content via a subscription model. If it works, rest assured that all big media publications will follow in Murdoch’s footsteps. Time will tell.
BTW … Put yourself in Murdoch’s shoes and you could well ask yourself, ‘What do I have to lose?’ The Times and Sunday Times just announced horrific 2009 results, losing some £80m between them… So for those particular properties it doesn’t take a genius to see the current business model is smashed.”
I missed out ….
Grrrrr….
DS team @ McDonalds
Notice the BIG SMILE! Why? Because I was not around 
Can Yahoo succeed where Google failed?
The Print Media business is in big trouble at the moment. Several media houses have altogether shut down and some have filed for bankruptcy (Tribune).
Why is this happening?
The simple economics is that revenues have sunk below publishing costs (i.e. paper + print + distribute). Also, there is some tough competition from Television & New Media. For advertisers, newspapers are no longer the only game in town.
Newspapers need to reinvent… not incrementally but exponentially. Else, they might go the dinosaur way!
Google Vs Yahoo!
Google tried selling contextual print ads in newspapers… but the strategy failed:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/20/google-bails-on-print-ads-and-newspapers/
Surprisingly, Yahoo seems to be enjoying some degree of success here. Yahoo’s Newspaper Consortium Keeps Growing:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/09/yahoos-newspaper-consortium-keeps-growing/
Interesting strategy.
Bollywood Portal Gets $5 million in Venture Capital
Chakpak.com, an entertainment portal (Bollywood Content) has gotten nearly 25 Crores in funding from Venture Capital Firm Canaan Partners
Sources:
VCcircle
Content Sutra
From the press release:
Alok Mittal, Managing Director, Canaan Partners, India explains that out of a base of 40 million online users in India, 18 million are already accessing some or the other entertainment destination. This put together with the demand for Indian content outside India totals to 25 -30 million users. Mittal says “it’s a large category. Since chakpak.com gets 5 million visitors every month, they have shown very strong traction over the last 12 months in building a significant presence.”
Bollywood PORTAL + 5 million users (claimed) + IIT Grads (Founders) = BIG Funding from a BIG VC
My Analysis of ChakPak.com:
1) Quality of Traffic : 2/10
Due to the nature of the site content, Chakpak caters to teenagers & the time-pass crowd. How many High-Net Worth individuals (HNI’s) do you think will hang out at the Chakpak forum sharing juicy gossip about actors/actresses and doing movie reviews?
2) Revenues : 2/10
What do they make… Rs 25 per 1,000 impressions? Wait, dont they have Google Adsense as their main source of revenue? WOW!
3) Technology: 1/10
Do they have a killer application… difficult to replicate? Any patent-pending technology? NADA
What about the UI… what about design? YUCCCK!
Wait, they do have integration with YouTube. WOW!
4) Competitiveness: 2/10
They are competing for marketshare with the likes of Network18, BCCL (Times), BigAdda, Bollywood Hungama, etc. (Established media business with stake in print, radio, tv, ooh & web) Do they have a differential offering OR some USP… without it they will NEVER be able to build a loyal user base.
5) Market Niche: 1/10
Bollywood content… huh? Very Nice.
In India, pretty much every mohalla in every city has a website centered around Bollywood. Need proof, check this out:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bollywood
Recommended Movie For Mr. Alok Mittal This Weekend: TITANIC
