6 posts and columns on KateModern

Buyer's Remorse or Not–AOL Is Not Considering Selling Bebo

in News on January 28, 2009 at 5:30 am PT

Yesterday, TechCrunch’s U.K. blogger Mike Butcher spun the tale of buyer’s remorse run amok with a report that Time Warner online unit AOL was “seriously considering selling Bebo, the social network it acquired for $850 million only a year ago,” citing poor performance and a bad advertising market. Later, AOL went on the record saying “there is no truth to this rumor,” although Butcher insisted otherwise from his sources. Well, actually, no. While Time Warner was crazy to pay that much for Bebo, it is not quite that nuts to sell it for bupkis.

lonelygirl15 Is Dead–Long Live EQAL!?!

in News on August 4, 2008 at 12:56 am PT

Last Friday, what BoomTown would call the Web’s first bona fide hit ended, as the lonelygirl15 online series finale took place with 12 video segments uploaded over 12 hours. Now, apparently, it is time to meet EQAL, a “social entertainment company” that is still essentially the two guys–Greg Goodfried and Miles Beckett–who dreamed up LG15 and also the KateModern Web series. Except, rather than operating out of their homes on a wing and a prayer, they are now armed with $5 million in funding.

Original Content on the Web Does Work

in News on February 28, 2008 at 3:35 am PT

The thudding failure of the online-born “quarterlife” original series on network television Tuesday night, garnering some of the worst ratings in NBC’s history (after experiencing a declining Internet audience too), was loudly touted yesterday as a possible impediment to online-to-offline dreams of original content creation that Hollywood has been nurturing. Well, it’s not. One show, which just did not work, is in no way representative of a trend, any more than the box office failure of the movie “Snakes on a Plane” meant online marketing and hype was finished.

Where Is the Content of the Future?

in News on November 26, 2007 at 12:03 am PT

I have seen the future of online entertainment and–no surprise–it’s not being created by Hollywood. That’s because people there are too busy fighting over nothing these days. Still, Hollywood’s writers and studios come back to the bargaining table again today, resuming their discussions to settle the strike that has been going on for three weeks [...]

Striking Out on Creating an Internet Hit

in News on November 7, 2007 at 3:23 am PT

So when, if ever, will there be a truly bona fide Internet hit? And please, pretty please, it just can’t be “lonelygirl15″ (pictured below) and some clever music videos. The lack of lasting and profitable professional content online is once again in sharp relief with the writers’ strike now taking place in Hollywood. In a [...]

What Does It Take to Make an Internet Hit? (Check Out These Videos!)

in News on September 13, 2007 at 3:04 am PT

One of the more interesting things about my interview yesterday with Mike Volpi of Joost–Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here–was our discussion about what kind of original and high-quality material will be created on the Web and how popular it will be. It’s certainly been a hit-or-miss proposition, since the Internet was [...]