A VC - Latest Comments in My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Grigore — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:02:06 -0000

Great Job !

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Eugen — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:57:27 -0000

Great Job !

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Eugen — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:57:04 -0000

Great Job !

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Morgan Warstler — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:21:19 -0000

has he already met someone at civentures.com

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Rob Long — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:15:09 -0000

I love Boxee. What a great product. And I'm really baffled by the
studios' response to it, by their pulling Hulu content. I don't get it.

The trouble with the broadcast networks is that they're still pushing
the customer around. Basic cable outfits like FX and USA and TNT and
Bravo rerun their shows pretty much wall-to-wall. You don't bother to
TiVo one of their shows because it's a good bet that it's on, right
now. USA's "Burn Notice" is a huge success for them, and it's on
maybe four or five times a day. But the broadcast guys still demand
that you sit and watch when they tell you to sit and watch. And the
customer is telling them to jump in the lake. The customer is going
to basic cable or the web or, worse, DVRs and zapping through the
commercials.

Boxee seems to me like a godsend to the broadcast networks -- anytime
you can get people back on the sofa watching your content -- rather
than ten inches from a laptop, finger poised over the mousepad -- it's
a huge win for them. Anytime you can remind the customer exactly how
wonderful your product is, it's a huge win. I don't get it. The
first thing the big studios and broadcast networks should be concerned
about it market share -- take back the eyeballs from Guitar Hero and
Facebook and LOLcats and basic cable offerings. The second thing is,
are they watching the commercials? The potent combination of Boxee
and Hulu seems to accomplish that. Figure the details out later.

As Dick Costolo hilarious put it in one of his tweets: (I'm
paraphrasing) "Hollywood has gone crazy. Now they don't want you to
watch TV on your TV."

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

fredwilson — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:25:18 -0000

Too bad you can't just do the remix and send it to me

We'll get there shortly I think

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

fredwilson — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:24:13 -0000

Rob thanks for stopping by and adding to the discussion

What do you think about Boxee?

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Idit — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:25:12 -0000

Hey Fred - thanks for sharing your fun deck. I heard your voice and even heard the laughter from the audience…. Many great points! I took your imagery and messages and imagined the following remix on the theme: “Startup Culture and the Future of Education.” I start with slide #25 “David After Dentist,” it’s good image for my title slide, but my text is: “David After School.” I jump to the image on slide #10, my text: “David Want To Be - In 6 Words: Global, Social, Open, Mobile, Playful, Intelligent.” Next slide: “David’s School Is: NOT (Global, Social, Open, Mobile, Playful, Intelligent).” Then I go to the image on slide 31 (with Einstein’s energy formula on a blackboard and a child scratching his head), with the text: “Where We Are...” Add a slide: “Where We Are Heading,” and move to the slides 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9… and so on. You got me going. Feel free to use and improve on my remix on Friday! Cheers, Idit.

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Rob Long — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:47:23 -0000

Great presentation! Even without the audio track.

Your "Six Words to Live By" I'm most certainly going to pass on to my friends and colleagues out here in LA, who are also in the television business.

People are still watching TV -- but they're watching it in a fundamentally different way, and in a way that demolishes the secret business model of the business, which was: People hate to change the channel. Seriously: the television business has been steadily declining since the first moment people didn't have to get up off the sofa to change the channel. From clicking around 13 channels to flipping through 1300, to time shifting and now cherry-picking only the shows a viewer wants to watch, the business has been forced to do something it wasn't designed to do: make money putting on shows people want to watch.

In the not-too-distant past, networks lost money on the hits -- shows like Cheers (which was my first gig) and Friends and Seinfeld ran deficits for their producers for the first few years, but by year 4 or 5, they were all "made whole" by the network. If you wanted to renew Cheers, NBC was told by Paramount, you need to pay us back for everything we've spent, plus more, plus more in the future, plus more for the cast, plus more just because we can.

So NBC's game was to make money on the shows around the hits -- the so-called "Halo" effect -- like Wings, which nobody really liked that much, but which was, you know, on. Why flip around?

The current environment is the worst possible outcome for people in Hollywood: you have to put on good shows. All of them have to be good. And you have to make money on them, too, because you're selling that show specifically, not the time periods around those shows.

But that's not how the system is set up. And the system is changing, and it's incredibly exciting (for people like me who have been in the business for a while and who like to write and produce shows) but it's terrifying for anyone who made money the old way, but servicing a system that only works if the customer doesn't or can't make a choice.

Put it this way: the recent sharp decline in house prices in the Los Angeles area isn't totally related to the overall economic recession. A lot of it is Hollywood-specific, as we all try to learn how to make money in the worst, most painful, least attractive way possible: earning it.

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Rich Ullman — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:27:24 -0000

ok, then. so it wasn't just the dress. Regardless of whose in those two seats, their expressions are always rather telling.

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

wjcohen — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:32:59 -0000

I'm a very mid-level cable production executive and find it frustrating that there is no way to test out some of the future of content ideas reliably - I wish I had a way to creatively program some of the iTV platforms that are being rolled out by distributors and the internet doesn't scale reliably for some of our ideas (especially regarding high def video.)

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

jakemintz — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:24:59 -0000

Hmm well maybe part of the reason it was so easy for me to disconnect is that I was not allowed to watch TV growing up (except for the occasional PBS). I was outdoors, either cross country skiing or snowboarding, 5+ days a week, so I don't know when I would have had time to watch TV anyways.

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

fredwilson — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:11:12 -0000

Yes, I think Pelosi is a problem for Obama

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Rich Ullman — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:55:37 -0000

Thanks Fred. (I thought it was pretty easy to follow, even without the audio). There are a lot of "internet people" with the idea that Americans as a whole are watching less TV, but your nugget in there shows it' not true. Just watching differently. The other night, I walked into the house to find my two kids watching...
the 3-year old was captivated by The Incredibles on the big screen. The 9-year old was watching and commenting her classmate's YouTube channel. Both were very happy.

(do you really think Pelosi is an ogre? ;)

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

CarlosPero — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:10:48 -0000

There's a bigger challenge with online-only when you have a family. Kids are used to watching TV.

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

fredwilson — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:47:09 -0000

Or go to the game in person

Sports are always better live

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

fredwilson — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:31:42 -0000

I wouldn't do the pitch, avner would and I am sure he'd love to do that

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

fredwilson — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:29:26 -0000

The broadcast networks are broadcasting over the air in HD. If they carry
the sports events you want, a high speed internet connection plus some
rabbit ears might be the call.

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

fredwilson — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:21:12 -0000

The last slide, where I show Hulu playing in the Safari browser on our TV,
is where I talked about that.

That issue Rick is something I'd like to do an entire presentation on

It's a great one

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

famolari — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:44:53 -0000

A prof of mine in grad school used to say that the quality of a slide deck could be judged based on whether or not someone else could use it to deliver an effective presentation.

Television does face challenges, but the end is not quite nigh -- the end is out there on the horizon but it's not as near as some think. It still attracts top talent (tho there is certainly a siphoning off to online - Joss Whedon and Dr. Horrible will open more eyes on this front). TV can hold on to the fact that it still matches people's rhythms fairly well. TV is dead simple and offers limited choice. Some may think this is a liability, but in many cases it's a plus since it bounds the discovery problem and people aren't paralyzed by choice.

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

jakemintz — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:41:33 -0000

I disconnected cable 6 years ago and love it. Hulu and all the digital content online make it easier but I was happy even before. My advice about sports: take the money you save and spend it on Guinness at a bar. Take some of the saved money and sign up for Netflix also.

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Vaibhav Domkundwar — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:12:32 -0000

Nice. It will be interesting to see different people present the same deck and see what comes out of it and how close it is to what you presented! Television faces a hard reality today and its a tough problem - they almost have to think about doing what Intel did to itself with the memory business. Is there a microprocessor-like business for the Television companies to get into? And something that is monetize-able .... better than YouTube?

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

JLM — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:14:44 -0000

512-656-1383 cell but don't tell anybody else

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

derrinyet — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:08:46 -0000

@JLM: Not to derail the conversation, but do you Tumbl? (I'm also in Austin and there may be a meetup on the horizon.)

Re: My Presentation Minus The Audio Track

Jamie Lin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:45:54 -0000

If they don't even get something as simple as letting users access Hulu from Boxee = more views = more revenue. I don't know how they can get all the great ideas in your presentation, Fred!