A VC: Web Services That Cater To Both The Publisher And The Reader
aweissman
· 1 year ago
"You have to build a service with the user/reader in mind or you won't get any uptake. But if you can't engage the content creator in your service, you'll lose something important"
what's most interesting about this thought - which clearly I agree with and in fact we look for and build services that support the notion - is that it implicitly acknowledges that the line between content consumption and creation (i.e, publisher and reader) is blurred, maybe to the point where the distinction no longer matters. Instead, more interesting value is being created by services which take new ways of looking at content, from the perspective not of the originator (or owner) of the content, but by its velocity, its movement, its consumption patterns.
So tremendous value can be created by looking at and building applications that, as you say, serve both sides of the equation because that's where the action is occurring.
gregorylent
· 1 year ago
"content" is no more than a trigger on a shotgun ... it is not the message anymore, but a catalyst. the conversation is the blog, or what used to be called content.
the actual value now comes from what is done with comments, with aggregation of meaning, with an analysis of summize, for example.
implications are everything. meaning has returned to center stage
Christopher Golda
· 1 year ago
"Instead, more interesting value is being created by services which take new ways of looking at content, from the perspective not of the originator (or owner) of the content, but by its velocity, its movement, its consumption patterns."
I think this touches on the notion that data is a commodity; it's increasingly abundant. Umair talks about this quite a bit. What's creating the most value (now and especially in the future) are the services that "amplify the flow of data" -- not the stock:
Umair explained that to me over lunch earlier this year and its one of the big insights of the year for me
Ryan Graves
· 1 year ago
wow, I love this thought. the reader becomes the publisher. Things like DISQUS are exactly positioned for this. Glad you took Freds post a step further with this thought. well done.
The reason I ask is that a few months back, I built www.linky.com.au one day to kill time, and wondered why I hadn't stumbled across someone doing something similar already. It seemed like a logical extension of the tinyurl concept.
It's similar to bit.ly but as well as tracking click origin, it tracks click dates as well (though the graphs are really boring to start with!). One day I'll build in a heat chart (clicks by date per referrer - picture a grid of dates on the x axis and a list of referrers on the y axis), and I guess mapping the clicks wouldn't be too stupid either. Other components I've considered adding are similar/related links (stories on the same site, or on the same topic), and some sort of sponsors tab to perhaps monetise it.
At the moment, it's mostly used as a way for the community at hoops.com.au to post links to the site. Not sure that many would return to track their referrers or clickthroughs.
Anyway, would appreciate feedback on the Linky idea from anyone who has the time to check it out. Like I said, it was a spur of the moment build one Sunday and I haven't really touched it since.
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
It's very slick and I really like the slim banner across the top of the page as the UI
WayneMulligan
· 1 year ago
I couldn't agree more.
I think the "catering to the publisher" mentality also eliminates one of the inherent risks in creating a "social" or community powered web app. The problem with many of these sites is the whole chicken & the egg issue -- how was Digg valuable before it had traffic, how did it get traffic before publishers deemed it valuable? That's tough nut to crack for an entrepreneur.
What many sites do is try to create a "utility" first - for example, Delicious was valuable even for that very first user. If nobody else was on Delicious I'd still use it for book marking stuff I found on the web and didn't want to lose on my hard drive or when I switched PC's. The service became even more valuable when more people got on it, but it was a utility first and social application second. The same with YouTube. That site could've done nothing else at the beginning but give me a place to upload and store my own videos and I would've found it to be useful.
So I think if more web services come at the 'chicken & the egg' problem from the perspective of, "How can I make my service valuable for one single users and nobody else", they'll dramatically increase their chances of success and mitigate a lot of the risk that comes from building community applications on the web.
JoeDuck
· 1 year ago
Insightful as usual Fred. I'd suggest that the most profound change agents of the future will be the non-tech folks that until recently (and even now) struggle to get their appropriate share of voice. Blogs are more tech-centric than real life but this will smooth out over time. Another factor is that there are signs that women will soon overwhelm men in terms of online content production - this will shift the mix of content as well.
Rex Pechler
· 1 year ago
It's "eluded" not "alluded"
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
Oops
Thanks, I'll make that correction
Jeff Janer
· 1 year ago
I completely agree that the democratization of content creation at the same time as the large media companies have embraced the power of social media creates new opportunities for web services businesses that cater to both. What's also interesting to note is that so far most of these efforts have been focused on new reader acquisition; i.e. by distributing content and/or referencing how and with whom that content has been shared - the originator stands to attract new readers.
But what about retention-focused web services that cater to publishers and readers? Are there ways to motivate readers to return and re-engage with the originator after the point of initial consumption?
"Nail in the head" article is what i would say, this becomes more relevant to ad -networks too. Keep the publisher,advertiser and content creator in mind. Check out a new web service that we are trying out , this has a concept you mentioned in our plans hyperwebenable.com .They encourage meaningful content, blogs, and good advertising.
SF
· 1 year ago
This is also an important lesson for enterprise/internal developers. Things taken for granted on the "web" are still only beginning to make their way into corporations, and the change that readers are also contributors, that comments are valuable, and that an extremely complex, unfriendly and workflow-centric process for creating and publishing content in many corporations is strangling their own "social" and "collaborative" initiatives.
At the same time, most consumer companies are not offering their products for corporate consumption - I would have loved to show disqus to my customers and users. Google sees this space as an opportunity by continuously adding features to its Google Apps offering. (They recently added a version of youtube to share videos within an organization.)
I understand that for many companies adding corporate-centric sales would require significant additional sales resources and perhaps a change in the focus, but would notthat create an opportunity for VCs to invest in spin-offs or entities that license technology but specialize in creating white-label corporate offerings based on that technology?
ps. sorry if this is a bit rambling.
@Stephen
· 1 year ago
This part of your post really strikes me as important - "big media companies are seeing the power of social media and they are engaging with the very same services more and more every day. This is mashing up and mixing up the concept of the publisher and the reader. And so services that do the same by focusing on both of them at the same time are going to prosper."
The question is, where do we find these people that have these ideas, and get them moving?
All Comments
what's most interesting about this thought - which clearly I agree with and in fact we look for and build services that support the notion - is that it implicitly acknowledges that the line between content consumption and creation (i.e, publisher and reader) is blurred, maybe to the point where the distinction no longer matters. Instead, more interesting value is being created by services which take new ways of looking at content, from the perspective not of the originator (or owner) of the content, but by its velocity, its movement, its consumption patterns.
So tremendous value can be created by looking at and building applications that, as you say, serve both sides of the equation because that's where the action is occurring.
the actual value now comes from what is done with comments, with aggregation of meaning, with an analysis of summize, for example.
implications are everything. meaning has returned to center stage
I think this touches on the notion that data is a commodity; it's increasingly abundant. Umair talks about this quite a bit. What's creating the most value (now and especially in the future) are the services that "amplify the flow of data" -- not the stock:
http://www.bubblegeneration.com/2008/01/data-is...
http://conversationhub.com/2007/07/31/video-clo...
I wrote a post called Conversation Centralization that is right down this path if you're interested.
http://ryanagraves.com/08/29/2008/conversation-...
The reason I ask is that a few months back, I built www.linky.com.au one day to kill time, and wondered why I hadn't stumbled across someone doing something similar already. It seemed like a logical extension of the tinyurl concept.
It's similar to bit.ly but as well as tracking click origin, it tracks click dates as well (though the graphs are really boring to start with!). One day I'll build in a heat chart (clicks by date per referrer - picture a grid of dates on the x axis and a list of referrers on the y axis), and I guess mapping the clicks wouldn't be too stupid either. Other components I've considered adding are similar/related links (stories on the same site, or on the same topic), and some sort of sponsors tab to perhaps monetise it.
Here's a Linky pointing to this blog entry in case anyone's interested:
http://linky.com.au/aoiwm
At the moment, it's mostly used as a way for the community at hoops.com.au to post links to the site. Not sure that many would return to track their referrers or clickthroughs.
Anyway, would appreciate feedback on the Linky idea from anyone who has the time to check it out. Like I said, it was a spur of the moment build one Sunday and I haven't really touched it since.
as the UI
I think the "catering to the publisher" mentality also eliminates one of the inherent risks in creating a "social" or community powered web app. The problem with many of these sites is the whole chicken & the egg issue -- how was Digg valuable before it had traffic, how did it get traffic before publishers deemed it valuable? That's tough nut to crack for an entrepreneur.
What many sites do is try to create a "utility" first - for example, Delicious was valuable even for that very first user. If nobody else was on Delicious I'd still use it for book marking stuff I found on the web and didn't want to lose on my hard drive or when I switched PC's. The service became even more valuable when more people got on it, but it was a utility first and social application second. The same with YouTube. That site could've done nothing else at the beginning but give me a place to upload and store my own videos and I would've found it to be useful.
So I think if more web services come at the 'chicken & the egg' problem from the perspective of, "How can I make my service valuable for one single users and nobody else", they'll dramatically increase their chances of success and mitigate a lot of the risk that comes from building community applications on the web.
Thanks, I'll make that correction
But what about retention-focused web services that cater to publishers and readers? Are there ways to motivate readers to return and re-engage with the originator after the point of initial consumption?
At the same time, most consumer companies are not offering their products for corporate consumption - I would have loved to show disqus to my customers and users. Google sees this space as an opportunity by continuously adding features to its Google Apps offering. (They recently added a version of youtube to share videos within an organization.)
I understand that for many companies adding corporate-centric sales would require significant additional sales resources and perhaps a change in the focus, but would notthat create an opportunity for VCs to invest in spin-offs or entities that license technology but specialize in creating white-label corporate offerings based on that technology?
ps. sorry if this is a bit rambling.
The question is, where do we find these people that have these ideas, and get them moving?