Comments on: Currently In Trouble: After Pulling Its IPO, Current TV Loses CTO

By: Flypaper.tv » Blog Archive » Latest Investements / M&A / IPOs / $$$$$

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:10:27 +0000

[...] In Trouble: After Pulling Its IPO, Current TV Loses CTO (Techcrunch): Current Media, the peer-to-peer news and information company famously co-founded by former U.S. [...]

By: harry

harry — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:20:58 +0000

i remember hearing the head of marketing and the entire marketing group left at that time. that certainly could account for the drop in Nov…. or it could have been as you say “election cycle”

By: Leif Utne

Leif Utne — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:28:31 +0000

Borat: Yes and no. Many newspapers have been wildly profitable, earning returns in the 20-30% range. Unfortunately that’s not profitable enough for the short-sighted Wall St. conglomerates who snapped them up since media ownership regs were loosened in ‘96.

But in the last few years, they’ve also been losing print readership to online, where ad spending is much lower per impression. Meanwhile, they’ve lost tons of online $$ from their cash cow — classifieds — to Craigslist et al. And, they’ve refused to embrace online audiences and get creative about new revenue streams.

So as we lose important services like investigative reporting at the dying dailies, online-only upstarts like http://huffingtonpost.com and http://minnpost.org are starting to fill the void.

By: Borat

Borat — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:09:12 +0000

Wow. Fascinating turn here. I hadn’t thought of it like that. You’ve got me convinced. Aren’t newspapers being closed now b/c they can’t generate a % of profit acceptable to public investors?

By: Leif Utne

Leif Utne — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:52:26 +0000

Its always sad to see promising companies lose talented people. Current’s UGC model has been a breath of fresh air amid the drivel that fills most of the cable dial.

But this story may have a silver lining. A big part of the problem, imho, is that Current ever planned to go public. I’m not saying they should be a nonprofit. I’m just not convinced that the news business and Wall St. should ever mix. The same perverse incentives that gave us the sub-prime mess inevitably drive good people to make bad decisions that drive good companies into the ground, as the ghosts of so many print dailies can attest.

Here’s a vote for building stable (and privately-held) media companies that provide real value, serve the public trust, and grow sustainably over the long term.

Good luck, Current!

By: Borat

Borat — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:20:32 +0000

“Judging by its website traffic, at least according to Compete and QuantCast, its audience seems to be shrinking fast. Both peg the visitor rates to have dropped significantly since peaking in November last year, estimating it received less than half the visitors on its website than it did 6 months ago.”

Higher viewership during the election cycle and a return to normal viewership perhaps?

By: Mark Schoneveld

Mark Schoneveld — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:05:06 +0000

It makes me sad to see Current struggling. I’ve always been a fan of what they were trying to accomplish. I think they probably got too much money and big name support to live up to their hyper-inflated expectations. If they had been allowed to grow more organically and stick to their mission they could have been YouTube or better.

By: Will

Will — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:08:14 +0000

If Current was smart it would devote 100% of its attention to SuperNews, the most interesting part of the website by leaps and bounds.

If SuperNews rolled out new content say 3 times a week and promoted the hell out of it, it would become a very popular destination. The SuperNews Twitter parody got over 1 million views on Youtube in about a week. How many other Current videos accomplished that?

SuperNews is clever enough and has enough potential for growth to stand on its own as an extremely popular website worth $15 million in funding. I doubt Current sees it this way, but the 1 million plus views in 1 week on Youtube for the Twitter video should be a wake-up call.

By: Coleman Foley

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:14:54 +0000

One of the most overhyped ideas of the 2000’s. You get the worst of UGC (poor production value), and the worst of TV (no choosing what show to watch.)

By: Former Employee

Former Employee — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:13:01 +0000

Ironically enough, that concept was proposed twice and it was never given any serious thought.

And Steven left before the layoffs. Other notables were Mark Goldman (COO), Smith Forte (SVP Online) and Jason Miel (SVP Programming)…all around the same time.

By: Paid Content : Industry Moves: Sparkplay Media, interCLICK, Linden Lab

Paid Content : Industry Moves: Sparkplay Media, interCLICK, Linden Lab — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:06:08 +0000

[...] —Sparkplay Media: Current Media and AOL vet Stephen Blumenfeld joined browser-based game developer Sparkplay Media as CTO. Blumenfeld had most recently been serving as a new media and tech consultant; prior to consulting, he spent three years as CTO of Al Gore-backed Current Media. Before Current, he’d served as VP of technology at AOL. Founded in 2006, Sparkplay plans to launch Earth Eternal, a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, later this year (via TechCrunch). [...]

By: Current TVがピンチ。IPO中止、CTO辞任

Current TVがピンチ。IPO中止、CTO辞任 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:06:43 +0000

[...] [原文へ] [...]

By: Kubiak Freedom

Kubiak Freedom — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:02:30 +0000

Its all changing. One of the best new sites is EyeEyeTv.com

Just imagine that YOU are the programming manager for a Tv station. You can choose 100 of your favorite channels & watch whatever you want (including many primetime shows and movies) anytime you want.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:20:08 +0000

Current really made a mistake when they redesigned their homepage. You now have to dig for stories when before it was lined up more like Digg is which was nice since you got the top stories first. Now it’s all in categories which should be secondary for news.

By: lemonobrien

lemonobrien — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:18:53 +0000

the company is not ahead of it’s time; i interviewed there for a job like 3 years ago for dev position; while they were good; they had no say. the internet was considered second/third at best. it was all about the tv… with tons of communication type major running around playing politics and pretending they’re cool.

most of the people hang outside smoking.

By: lemonobrien

lemonobrien — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:15:39 +0000

sparkplay, i ca n already tell by the name it’s noplay.

By: lemonobrien

lemonobrien — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:14:16 +0000

@kpr, you’re blinded by ideology.

By: ASG

ASG — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:54:06 +0000

The company is just a bit ahead of its time! CurrentTV’s issue is how it reaches its audience, its only on one channel on Cable TV and that channel isn’t available to basic subscribers! CurrentTV also should have some sort of interactive shows where viewers can interact with each other and watch online or call in via Skype. The future of News & Print Media will be based on a distributed platform where content consumers now have the opportunity to become content producers & leveled playing fields!

By: jonathanwthomas

jonathanwthomas — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:44:53 +0000

I’ve never particularly liked Current.TV and would have preferred if they had not taken Newsworld International off the air to make room for it.

Newsworld International was a great niche cable network that showed news programs from all over the world such as ITV News in the UK, CBC News, Japan News, etc.

It was a neat little channel and no one has replaced it since Current took it off the air.

By: tory davis

tory davis — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:08:20 +0000

Anything Al Gore does is pure propoganda. Since he lost the presidential election hes been trying to create a “legacy” for himself. Sorry, Al this Global Warming farce isnt working.

By: matthew

matthew — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:51:18 +0000

You two sound like athiests. Dirty, dirty athiests.

By: Scart

Scart — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:41:07 +0000

I like Current TV, but the UK schedule involves a lot of repetition of ‘pods’ these days. I’m not convinced they’re doing the right things to get the message out there for people to submit content.

By: Matt Mihaly

Matt Mihaly — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:30:28 +0000

Steven is a rock star and we’re really happy to get him on board at Sparkplay. Current’s loss is our gain!

By: david

david — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:30:06 +0000

no, the current administration is working overtime on that for him

By: kpr

kpr — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:28:13 +0000

Randy, while your quoting polls, those must be the 60% of USA citizens which don’t believe in Evolution either …