Katalyst Media founders Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg were in Silicon Valley today. They stopped by TechCrunch HQ (aka my house) before heading off to more important meetings with Dan Rosensweig at Quadrangle Group (and the former COO of Yahoo) and YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley.
The reason for the visit? They are preparing to launch new interactive web content (with an emphasis on the interactive part) and are doing a bit of a road show to see what Silicon Valley thinks of their ideas. I had a chance to see some of the content and hear their monetization strategy. And while I can’t say much yet, this is clearly going to be really entertaining stuff. Advertisers in particular are likely to flock to the platform.
The two decided to focus on the web after a trial run with AOL that began in 2006. That partnership eventually fizzled – rumor is the content was a little too racy for AOL’s taste.
The new content isn’t just entertaining, it’s highly engaging with users and they definitely have a monetization strategy that goes beyond display and pre/post roll ads.
And Kutcher won’t be trying to lock people into interacting with content under their rules. “If people steal our stuff, it’s fantastic” he said.
Suddenly Katalyst Media is doing more than producing video, they’re now building software. That means they need to hire more developers. Their most important hire is a new CTO, Kutcher said. Prepare your resumes.
Sorry for the teaser on this. More to come.
That must have been really cool. Too bad Demi didn’t come along.
haha you got punk’d mike
I guess I’ll stop by next time I am down there. Is there any screening process who you let in to the TC HQ (ahem your house)…
do you have the url correct in crunchbase? it leads to a spam site
Sounds cool. I like the that Kutcher is willing to take risks.
Who financed the $10M?
btw – I have a great CTO candidate for you guys when you’re ready. His background is freakin’ solid with highly distributed platforms, messaging, communications, video….. and is now ironically working at one of the media channels. If you read this and are interested have TechCrunch get the email address from this post.
If kutcher is in the web business and this thing is as good as you say it is, i’ll be highly impressed.
Mike,
That was a nice picture, was it taken when they came to tc HQ
Cheers, Nag
Sounds interesting. Looking forward to learning more come launch time, especially on their monetization strategy.
Nag – yes, i took it earlier today. Ashton got out all his apple gear for the shot.
Nice!
I actually respect that you kept the details to a min despite knowing their plans. Definitely opens the possibilities of discussing ideas with you Michael.
Cheers
Interesting. I haven’t seen or heard of too many new video monetization strategies, so this could be great.
Mike – will this strategy be intertwined with Ashton/Jason’s product only or do you think this new approach might be applicable to other media providers?
This will be in the Funny or Die category. I’d imagine his content will get popular. How many shows will they have? Will they have live and pre-recorded shows? Ill it be streamed media or downloads?
** Will it be streamed media or downloads?
hope his tech ideas are better than his acting. He SUUUUCKS at acting.
Thanks for sharing!
Nice, yes i saw the mac and iphone…
Cheers, Nag
Cool, Ashton has learned to flip his money early. That will pay off in the long run!
Im curious what he (ashton) has in store. It seems everything the kid touches turns to gold. He seems to always make the right decisions, ah hem, Demi… for example. But PUnk’d, Beauty and the Geek are really cool shows.
Can’t wait… maybe I can get a job with his company
I’m guessing their “monetization” strategy is to fill their crap with promotions and product placement. This is why they want people to distribute their crap. Fox probably earns more on promotional deals with coca cola/ford/apple/att than on their traditional tv ads for american idol.
Kutcher should just enjoy the $$ he gets from his acting career. This smells like an Ooma repeat.
let me guess….
- Go to Starbucks, Buy 5 Grande Latte’s and a few Music CD’s at the register….
Go out to the street and give them away. Next go to BestBuy and try to negotiate down the price of their top of the line HDTV… While wearing a Coke hat and an NBC t-shirt and…. well you get the picture
or not.
Ashton Kutcher… but I thought you couldn’t program a website in peanut butter.
PS
I’m not really making fun of him. It’s just that this guy is famous for saying “burn” and “punk’d”. So… the reply to this post… is…
sadly they may have been lead to believe that danr has a clue. i am sure one meeting will take care of that.
I wondered what happened to Ooma but I looked on Amazon and the devices have great reviews. I wonder if it is really a success or what it would take for it to be considered a success. Someone should followup.
Well, I suspect that many of the reviews on Amazon were written by the Ooma publicity department. They just aren’t the kind of wording that the average user would write. I wish there were some way to actually measure its success, like if Amazon (or Ooma) would reveal sales figures.
Definitely interesting. So how does one apply?
I couldn’t find a side for Katalyst Media and contacting the big shots directly is definitely out of the question
Any tips? Thanks!
wtf happened to Ooma?
Yeah, that CTO is gunna be key.
Ryan
lessons in brevity: http://www.mofata.com
eh
Cool, but their logo sucks.
Either Ashton has some pictures of MA in compromising situations or MA owns a piece of Ashton’s companies.
Some of the commenters in here need to get over yourself. You have no idea what they are doing. Its easy to speculate and say its not going to work but 95% of the companies Mike covers on here don’t work. This is a startup launched by some people with some great credentials and Mike thinks its a good idea. There is no reason Mike shouldn’t cover it.
their CTO can probably convince them to use perl for the entire site instead of ruby.
wow! i don’t know about their company and ideas but ashton looks really hot. i bought iphone and mavbook air and nikon just because ashton had them and would try ooma. i am 38 btw
Yo Gabba Katalyst & Co.
I am not a popular kids puppet show featuring a spiky eraser and asexual VJ, but we are interactive format developers, with 2 really rather clever ideas we’re trying to find a nice comfortable home for, like a kitten I suppose.
We employ the cleverest technical and creative minds in parts of Europe and a small part of the American isle and we got a dating format to end all dating formats, that re-invents Blind Date for the web age.
That’s the pitch, here’s the critique, if Mike’s impressed, we should wait and see, the web is crying out for a truly interactive, truly entertaining content proposition and given Ashton and Jason’s track record we’d be wise to watch this space with interest.
his life in the real world seems to be a lot more admirable than a lot of other movie stars
hey mike, when you mean racy, do u mean that it is videos of ashton and demi or cameron doing it and making out? it could be a great platform for marketing his movies like mr skin without the nudity but just backstage videos of his female co-stars. Or it could be like project greenlight with fans contributing short film ideas.
We LOVE Ashton Kutcher! He is the CUTEST celeberaty on earth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did they ever hire a CTO? If so, who? If not, where do I send my resume?
$10M budget for content production is nothing, in the Hollywood space. Why all the hype?
“And Kutcher won’t be trying to lock people into interacting with content under their rules. “If people steal our stuff, it’s fantastic” he said.”
Wow, how innovative!!
good topic
Signed the Petition
Good cause and work there.