It's not just Yahoo. Content impresarios from Steven Spielberg to Ashton Kutcher and Mark Burnett have all tried and failed at the online content game, says the
L.A. Times. Perhaps even more
tricky than developing a hit on the Web is knowing what defines one, one Microsoft executive says. "There are as many answers to that question as people you ask it to." The confusion surrounding the
online content game became increasingly apparent yesterday, as Yahoo announced in a
New York Times piece that it will be drastically scaling back efforts to produce original entertainment. It
seems like everyone is saying the Internet is the next place to launch shows and squeeze more money out of older ones--TV networks, Internet portals and television producers are all scrambling to
develop or port over their content to the Web. But if we step back and take a look at what's been successful so far for the major Internet companies, says Jeff Lanctot, an interactive ad exec, you'd
have to say e-mail, Web search, instant messaging and other services, not programming. Not only that, but most clicks that do become hits don't make a dime--like the video clip of two Chinese students
lip-synching to the Backstreet Boys' song "I Want It That Way." Still, broadband video is in the very earliest of days, as high speed Internet has only just reached critical mass. However, for media
companies to actually make money from advertising (as they plan to do), the media industry will have to significantly outgrow the $225 million spent on video last year.
Read the whole story at L.A. Times (free registration required) »