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How many times must Mark Cuban say that the economics of content delivery on the internet are fucked, before people listen? http://blogmaverick.com/2008/05/04/

How many times must Mark Cuban say that the economics of content delivery on the internet are fucked, before people listen? http://blogmaverick.com/2008/05/04/the-ala-carting-of-video-on-the-net-will-it-lead-to-disaster/ http://blogmaverick.com/2008/05/04/the-ala-carting-of-video-... http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=economics%20video%20site%3Ablogmaverick.com http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=economics%20vide...

tptacek 18y ago
The bulk of Cuban's point here is simply that online video currently has a lower ad load (2 minutes) than network TV (8 minutes), which is a huge reduction in volume. But it doesn't acknowledge that those 2 minutes: * can be targeted much better than existing TV ads * have a drastically lower cost of entry for advertisers, and can potentially support a much larger ecosystem of advertisers * support fine-grained stats and analytics about viewership and popularity, rather than TV's archaic system of up-fronts, sweeps weeks, and Nielsons. It seems likely that Internet video is going to seriously fuck up the existing networks. But the question is whether it's going to be creative destruction. There are lots of credible models that don't require middlemen to sell us air.
- llimllib 18y ago
  That's all true for the article I linked directly, but the problems are greater than just the lower ad load. The value of a la carte viewers is lower than the value of scheduled viewers[1] and more importantly, the internet is not designed to assure successful video delivery[2]. He even proposes a mechanism[3] for fixing the economics of video distribution - by intermediating the cable companies(!), for whom a marginal viewer has no cost, between content providers and customers. I'm truly not a Cuban fanboy, but I think he's got a point on this one. [1]: http://blogmaverick.com/2007/07/09/metcalfes-law-and-video/ http://blogmaverick.com/2007/07/09/metcalfes-law-and-video/ [2]: http://blogmaverick.com/2008/03/28/internet-video-vs-digital-tv/ http://blogmaverick.com/2008/03/28/internet-video-vs-digital... [3]: http://blogmaverick.com/2008/07/14/the-way-to-save-internet-video/ http://blogmaverick.com/2008/07/14/the-way-to-save-internet-...

tptacek 18y ago

The bulk of Cuban's point here is simply that online video currently has a lower ad load (2 minutes) than network TV (8 minutes), which is a huge reduction in volume. But it doesn't acknowledge that those 2 minutes: * can be targeted much better than existing TV ads * have a drastically lower cost of entry for advertisers, and can potentially support a much larger ecosystem of advertisers * support fine-grained stats and analytics about viewership and popularity, rather than TV's archaic system of up-fronts, sweeps weeks, and Nielsons. It seems likely that Internet video is going to seriously fuck up the existing networks. But the question is whether it's going to be creative destruction. There are lots of credible models that don't require middlemen to sell us air.

llimllib 18y ago
That's all true for the article I linked directly, but the problems are greater than just the lower ad load. The value of a la carte viewers is lower than the value of scheduled viewers[1] and more importantly, the internet is not designed to assure successful video delivery[2]. He even proposes a mechanism[3] for fixing the economics of video distribution - by intermediating the cable companies(!), for whom a marginal viewer has no cost, between content providers and customers. I'm truly not a Cuban fanboy, but I think he's got a point on this one. [1]: http://blogmaverick.com/2007/07/09/metcalfes-law-and-video/ http://blogmaverick.com/2007/07/09/metcalfes-law-and-video/ [2]: http://blogmaverick.com/2008/03/28/internet-video-vs-digital-tv/ http://blogmaverick.com/2008/03/28/internet-video-vs-digital... [3]: http://blogmaverick.com/2008/07/14/the-way-to-save-internet-video/ http://blogmaverick.com/2008/07/14/the-way-to-save-internet-...