Thanks signed sicked of
Meebo`s bad business

However in the meantime ….Where of where is YAHOO Chat gone!.Yahoo in Silicon Valley is neglecting its chat rooms. Is it Yahoo’s intention to just let it die out?
Like we said before many times..most would be willing to pay a small fee to use Yahoo Chat…Many of the chatters are Seniors to old to now to get out and run around every night, Disabled shut-ins and people from all walks of life that feel like making new friends from all over the world.

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We Will Create Your Very Own Domain Name – http://PowerNamer.com

Its hard to imagine that a company like Meebo, with a good rep. has managed to turn the tables on themselves.

Its not like the community was shouting for this… they did this to themselves.

Was there really no other way to monetize the (loyal) users??

Meebo has this huge user base only because it solved a unique need for these users in a very simple, easy and efficient way. Now they seem to have been distracted from their main value proposition and are attempting half baked ventures in uncharted territories (for the team).

Is it an admission of failure from the Meebo folks that they cannot monetize their user base in the way they currently use Meebo so that they had to go for other ways to generate revenues? If that’s true, then it’s very sad for a startup with heavy venture funding, loyal the user base and a supposedly great team!

What Meebo is doing here is a mediocre attempt to create social interaction and communication around video which will certainly have a bona fide market. The problem is that Meebo has missed the mark and copied the wrong people. I think that many VC backed startups are detrimentally governed by the VC status quo modus operandi i.e. the bewildering need to discover 100x mega-hits from scruffy Stanford Alum. The only online video hit for VCs was the YouTube/ Google deal. YouTube is little more than the Napster of Web 2.0. To state the obvious – Video distribution has and always will be paid for by advertising dollars. The technology crowd has very little experience with the video creation industry.

Here is a break down of one Hollywood segment. There are maybe 20 global advertising agencies that commission approx $6 Billion to less than 20 (mostly Los Angeles based) production companies (in reality there are 180 AICP commercial production firms in the US but the top 20 take about 95% of the revenue). This is the money that advertising agencies pay to make the the commercials / or as we all now like to call ‘video’. This content i.e. TV commercials (as the encompassing term) – is created by hundreds of Producers, Directors, Production Managers ( at Production Companies) and Creative Directors/Art Directors et al (at Advertising Agencies). The current model is to optimizing the relevance of these spots to small segments of audience demographics that hover around the TV networks. The rest of the audience is like “WTF?!” So, the Ad agencies, spend close to $80 billion doing this every year. $80 billion spent every year to marry relevant content with relevant audiences and usually putting irrelevant content in front of the wrong people. As we know this is the floor with the current model. The average commercial costs around $1million and about one month to produce. The average TV commercial requires approximately 120 crew hired by the Production Manager and Producers. There are approx 1000 active PMs and Producers in this $6 billion US production industry. The mean A list TV commercial director (mean: as in ‘average’ not as in ‘asshole’ – although the latter applies to approx 80% of them) (and there are approx 500 of them) generates revenues around $12MM annually. Oh, and don’t think these production companies are limited to commercials and music videos, these folks go on to create and release many of the biggest box office features worldwide produced by these commercial production companies. Just one of these top production companies have the wealth, embedding and power to far exceed all (excluding YouTube) Web 2.0 Internet video startups combined. This is the real industry of ‘video’ this is where all the money is and balance of power probably isn’t going to change anytime soon.

Now consider Meebo’s place in this economy. $12MM is approximately what Meebo has taken in VC. It’s fairly obvious that their advertising strategy is going fail. It’s a glorified banner ad machine.

There is another market out there that’s itching to be grabbed and Meebo has missed it as they fundamentally misunderstand the emerging economy of entertainment over the equally emerging longtail production / audience landscape. This is the economy where Madison Ave intersects with niche content production across the coagulating media enterprises that are beginning to form Blogosphere 2.0. I think many Silicon Valley VCs have placed a little too much emphasis on capturing televisions eyeballs and rose tinted potential of the local Stanfordesque crowd (think 1998…) when they should be exploring the people who really understand the entertainment medium. The Web 1.0 view of Hollywood not knowing a line of code from a line of coke is dangerous thinking for today’s VC. They’re simply missing the opportunity to invest in companies that are actually going to responsible for creating change. This ultimately derives from a gross lack of understanding about the fundamental commodity in question – Filmmaking.

It may be un-sexy and require a few more flights to LAX every month, but that is what it will take for VCs to win in the evolving Internet. Focus on building multiple 10x’s instead of one 100x goliath and you (look at Charles River “Quick Start’ for inspiration if you must) that’s where all the majority of the money has always been in the Hollywood game, and it’s not going to change. Learn the mechanics of the content business – i.e. Hollywood! Learn the complexity behind creativity i.e. production, unions, politics etc. Hollywood producers devote entire careers trying to figure out what it takes to produce material that gets noticed (commercials, music videos, etc) and what material drives a returning audience. This is the essential skill set required to capture a nice chunk of the $80 billion. There’s a massive and lucrative economy here in LA that companies like Meebo are just too far removed to penetrate. Almost all the VCs I’ve met and talk with understand this but chomp at the bit for a logical solution. I think that this is the heart of the problem – VC’dom. Most VCs are scrambling around like bewildered PAs (Production Assistants – generally considered the Hollywood know-nothing) looking under their local rocks for the next media giant. Thankfully, a tiny handful understand the ultimate value of content production and it’s place in the blogosphere, which is why we’re now starting to see an increase in funding in Los Angeles Film/Internet ventures.

As we know the Internet went video last year and we’re at the dawn of a new kind of creative potential. It’s evident to me that the experts in the field of film production will increasingly play a bigger role leading the online video creation/distribution charge. All they’re waiting for is a glimpse of a logical (good business model) economic prize. It will certainly require a more knowledgeable company that Meebo to ignite this new medium/economy – the economy that could ostensibly drive media buys from $80 billion above $100 billion in the next five years. Remember, most of this money wont be going to Google or who ever ends up brokering TV advertising – it goes to networks that create and deliver the entertainment. The Networks usually have most of the control in the material/production too. So, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is the model that will probably continue to succeed. The mechanics behind it just aren’t small and agile enough to change with every current of trend. This is logical.

Summing up: I think film production companies /professionals will end up using their relationships (built over decades) with Advertising Agencies to oversee the creation of the lions-share of popular longtail content, a few crappy ones may succeed but they will be the freaks of nature. There will also be a handful of new media platforms, possibly a widget company, that will win and form the foundation of the blogosphere’s content distribution platform. These platforms will more than likely play the most powerful role in content creation as they will control the brokerage and popularity of content. We will undoubtedly see continued user driven anarchy for a few more years until these new powerbrokers solidify this business.

Existing relationships with Advertising Agencies are the key to success here. It requires years of trust and experience to navigate, penetrate and dominate in the advertising production community. The new market will probably be driven more by filmmakers than coders. Today, if a startup choosing to enter ‘Internet Video’ wants any chance of success, it will probably need to be, in some way, routed in the Hollywood/ Madison Avenue machine, not led by Northern California’s ‘blind’ VCs leading Northern California’s ‘blind’ entrepreneurs into businesses that lack knowledge of the entertainment industry. The best VCs in this game are already forging relationships with Hollywood. I think the logical advertising model of today i.e. slapping ads all over content is probably the wrong approach for the evolving people-oriented-Internet.

Enjoyable entertainment is usually advertising something….

I don’t see the point of having chat rooms.

As for the ads, sooner or later they had to start making some money to impress their investors, but a “lull advertising.” 15-30seconds, is just freakin annoying!

* disappointed user

Let’s say enabling the parental control on Rated-R HD-DVD Movie. Where in it will auto bleep bad languages from the HD-MOVIE.

Not just grabbing embedded youtube in your chat environment.

not sure if its too little too late…..its been a long time since Meebo had a release…..their widget came out about a year ago….

Danny from meebo here.

I left this same URL last night, but I’ll be hanging in the TechCrunch room at meebo on and off today for people that want to debate, ask questions, give feedback and report bugs.

http://www.meeb...techcrunchchat/

Catch ya later,

Danny

Seriously – can anyone here say that they would actually spend time using this? Or is meebo just going after the bored kid demographic? Is this really the outcome they wanted?

Oh, and to all the haters that knock Meebo’s product, most of you would love to be in their shoes…-Metagg