Share it - loose it
I’ve always been a fan of tech videos on the web. I remember the good old days of Tech TV, previously ZDTV, now defunct. The newest of them, Techfluff.tv just recently launched its 3rd episode on Europe’s number one Web-Tech conference in Paris, Le Web ‘08. TechCrunch just recently covered the show explaining that “every week TechFluff delves into the world of web-celebrities and tech startups, particularly the London scene”.
I think online video has always presented monetizing challenges even more so through its syndication channels. This past summer at TechCrunch 50, I heard Ashton Kutcher talk about his theory on this topic and how he was using product placement on his show, Blah Girls. I can understand how that might work for an animation of sort but its difficult to execute product placement opportunities when it comes to on-site interviews.
Take Kevin Rose’s Revision 3 for instance, I know that he has sponsorship opportunities on every show and he executes them well but do you think online advertisers expect more? I think so, I think online advertising is much more about direct response (call to action) type of advertising then branding or sponsorships. Take a look at the evolution of banner advertising and how far that has gone.
I don’t think showing a sponsor on a show has enough stickyness to it but if they can figure out a really clever way of incoporating the sponsor into the content that would be cool but then again does that break the editorial code of conduct?
Tags: TechCrunch
One Response to “Monetizing video shows can create challenges through syndication”
Hey Adam,
Interesting post. Monetising video content certainly is an issue that hasn’t yet been properly solved. For us at Techfluff.tv, we’re partly doing this for fun - but are looking at proper monetisation to ensure the show can continue and have the full support it requires.
We’ve opted to go down the sponsorship route, and are looking at how we can incorporate sponsors into the content without breaking an ‘editorial code of conduct’. For Sun Start-up Essentials, who’ve provided us with our initial sponsorship, this has meant choosing, where possible, start-ups on their start-up programme to be interviewed on our escalator pitch. However, we haven’t given them control of who to interview, and haven’t restricted ourselves to SSE members only. Luckily it just so happens that a lot of start-ups in London are SSE members, so it’s not such a difficult task!
We generally think that sponsorship is the best route for us because of the niche audience for the show, at least at the moment (generally the tech start-up community). This is a valuable audience that pulls in a lot of sponsorship money already from corporate service providers for a range of other events and media; this certainly doesn’t apply for all online video.
How this can work with other parts of the show will be interesting, as obviously it is important not to compromise the show itself. Time will tell!
Josh
December 21st, 2008 at 3:34 pmTechfluff TV