From London to LA

Depending on the business model adopted, the content creator has the ability to decide the value of the content he provides. So far though, one of the main model has been provided by Youtube, which has enabled a unique type of content to emerge, that
can only be properly monetized on a very large scale. Talking about participation on the production, selection and distribution level, Henry Jenkins writes “Youtube was the first to bring all these three functions together into a single platform and direct so much attention of the role of everyday people in this changed media landscape” (“Convergence, Culture, where old and new media collide”, 2006 )

There are different ways of engaging the viewer with the content, and with those different ways come different business models.
The most used business model is the ad-supported one. It currently exists in all the realms of the online business, but in general it’s not a self-sufficient model. It’s still the main
business model, but the prices are going down, as they’re affected by the financial crisis. It’s widely expected to fall from one year to now. Pre roll ads for example have a very low level of viewer’s engagement (around 1%). Some content providers are reluctant to alienate the viewer with that kind of advertising. The big exception to that however, is Hulu that operates on an advertising model and has just recently become the third most viewed channel on the Internet in the US. It’s interesting to note though that Hulu provides mainly content from TV broadcasting, therefore content that comes from an environment where viewers are used to the ad model. The most common ad revenue model, that is specific to the Internet, is the one based around the CPM: online advertising relating to the cost per thousand page impressions.
Following that model, Charles Baker from Filmaka.com, explained to me how previously working for companies like INgrooves, their strategy was to post videos across multiple networks and monetize the content from ads. It’s a business model everyone can benefit
from, but that gives little return on investment unless the viewing figures are extremely high.
Anyone with a Google account can manage an ad-sense deal that also works on Youtube. Most artists who were revealed on Youtube like Tay Zonday, David Choi, and Bobby Jennings, use this partnership with Youtube. Bobby Jennings, better known as Bobjenz,
has been putting content on the Internet since 1999. He wrote for me in an email: “The content partnership money I get from Youtube definitely motivates me and creating an audience is challenging. I don’t make a lot of money off of it, but it’s starting to pick up quite a bit.” In general the consensus that was confirmed by Benny Fine from the Fine Brothers Films at Digital Hollywood, is that while ads generate some revenue, it’s not enough to make a living. Tay Zonday who came to visit our APOC class also explained that he relied on additional revenues by marketing songs on I-tunes, making special guest appearances,
doing presenting jobs, etc. Youtube has come to existence by enabling those artists to exist independently through the explosion of User Generated Content.The “Youtube” artists could be considered at the low-end spectrum of the online revenue businesses, yet they are some of the top entertainers on the Web with unique brands, their videos often have hundreds and thousands of views, and many thousands of subscribers. The reason one can assume their content is at the low end of the online production is because they often use apparently simple means to make videos (just one camera posted in a room for example). I often find that simplicity deceiving, they actually have actually developed sophisticated ways of grabbing their audience and they can work the Youtube features to their advantage like no one else. They have nevertheless chosen to privilege the quantity
of the output (hence the “lower” production values). Bobby Jennings even goes as far as saying that he privileges quantity over a certain quality: “Most people say Quality over Quantity, and I say, that’s bullshit when you’re building your brand. I mean, you have to
be good – but there are creative choices you can make to be able to create 2-3 videos a week versus 2-3 videos a month.” “User generated content” is often associated with a free online experience, that comes with a cheaper expectation .
On the very high end of the online video spectrum (and the very low end of Hollywood productions) are series like \"Afterworld\" an immersive multiplatform sci-fi series and “Gemini Division” starring Rosario Dawson and currently streaming on NBC.com, by Brent Friedman and his company Electric Farm Entertainment. Brent told me in an interview that those two very ambitious series have been successful both from an editorial and business point of view. His vision is that in order to make money you need to spend money. He created the series from scratch and then opened them up for grabs. By doing so he allowed himself a certain flexibility from a creative and business standpoint to suit the partners’ needs. The deal that came with “Afterworld” was very
sophisticated from a distribution point of view. Thanks to a distribution deal signed with Sony Pictures, the series went to broadcast, broadband and mobile, into different territories in different language with different versions of the show, depending on what had been requested by the territories. The business model was also built with brand integration. The creators were eager to see how the brands could be organically integrated. The science and technology background meant that brands like Microsoft and Cisco fitted easily in the storyline. In a still very fluid and changing context, Brent driven by his passion for storytelling, took a leap of faith and was able to lay a trail for future business models. In doing so he was clear about the importance of owning one’s content to exercise and creative control and be able to aggregate intellectual property. Brent mentioned that the next step at some stage for Electric Entertainment would be to do their
own distribution, but so far he was glad of the deal he benefited from with Sony as it opened the content to new horizons and managed to secure 30 million viewers in a universe created from scratch, for people to engage in.

Flying Turtle Bobjenz

Gemini