Rupert Murdoch engages in a bit of portal-speak

The Wall Street Journal reports that Rupert Murdoch said MySpace “needs to be refocused as an entertainment portal.” I have mostly stopped reading stories about MySpace, or other social networking companies or initiatives because I just can’t take it anymore. Social networking has been clubbed to death. It needs to stop. We need to let the poor animal escape off the beach and prosper as it might, or might not, in nature.

But Mr. Murdoch’s comments stopped me because I haven’t seen anyone reportedly aspire to build a portal in years. To double-check I went to HULU to see if they use the word portal given that HULU seems to be a well-adjusted, functioning portal.  There is nothing obvious that I could find. The mission statement says:

“Hulu’s mission is to help people find and enjoy the world’s premium video content when, where and how they want it. As we pursue this mission, we aspire to create a service that users, advertisers, and content owners unabashedly love.”

The explicit use of the word “where” in the mission is anti-portal. In the section about distribution, HULU goes further, saying:

“We take a lot of pride in making it easy for Hulu.com users to find and enjoy great video, but we also realize that one website is not enough. It’s just as important to make it simple to find premium videos at millions of other places around the web. Wherever people spend their daily lives on the web, we want hit shows, movies, and clips to be just a mouse-click away.”

HULU may be comfortable as a video portal, therefore, because it has no plans to remain one; it envisions a media world with millions of other places that may matter equally in the eyes of consumers. This is well-adjusted thinking.

According to the Journal, Mr. Murdoch is thinking of MySpace as a place where “people are looking for common interests.” This is portal-speak, and we should pay attention to it. It is really very important in regards to what it says about the challenges we keep having retro-fitting offline media to online media. If a place is about people with common interests, those places, on balance, are going to be small(er). But, this is not likely what Rupert Murdoch is thinking. No, indeed, when media industrialists such as Rupert Murdoch talk about places where people are looking for common interests they are thinking BIG – so big as to equal all common interests.

All common interests describes the Internet. It is a place of near infinite common interests. Given that, a place of common interests inside the Internet is superfluous. It is unnecessary. Hence the history of AOL, the on-going identity crisis at Yahoo!, and the fact that we don’t hear much talk of portals anymore - because they failed the value test.

Offline we talk about “general interest” media, such as general interest magazines, which have been among the biggest players in the traditional media world. No surprise that we should seek to emulate them online. But, we don’t need general interest online. The common interest is so accessible that aggregating enough of what enough people are commonly interested in is - again - unnecessary. 

The Internet is the place for common interests and no other places need apply.

Content wants to be free. Advertising wants to be accountable. It’s a tough time to be a new media child.

The story in Daily Finance reporting on Jonathan Miller’sspeculation that one day Hulu may charge for content has ricocheted around the news forums and digests. Boy, I’ll tell you, every time media companies take a step or two towards the invisible fence line surrounding the free content playground online the dog collar starts spitting electrodes. Posters to the column on Daily Finance were quick to jump on Miller’s comments:

“The fact that executives are still trying to figure out a way to charge for content online is mind boggling to me. It doesn’t work. Hulu was an ingenious idea. Since people were watching shows online for free anyways, why not create create an online platform and shift power back to the networks.”

“Another exec with no clue. I love Hulu in its current incarnation, and would certainly abandon it if it wasn’t free. What an idiot.”

Most of the 60+ posts were like that. The first poster (above) linked to a survey on a related topic at EngadgetHDthat asked, “How much would you pay for HULU on your TV?” When I took the survey the score was pay “Nothing”, 4,590 (76.6%), to pay “Something” (there were a few options), 1,401 (23.3%). I was among the “nothing” crowd.

Michael Kinsley’s article eight years ago in Slate, “It’s not just the Internet”, is still the best thing that’s ever been written on the subject of content economics. It should be required reading for media professionals. The truth is, content for a consumer audience is free, offline and on. If it’s not for free, it’s for darn near nothing. It’s underwater. It’s in the red. It costs the producer, not the consumer of the information.

So, of course, advertising has foot the bill for content for 30 years, maybe more, and grew weary of it at the start.  Despite their carrying costs advertisers got no input into the editorial products, little input into the position of their messages, and only some insight into how much of their investment reached its target - which was maybe half. Advertising has wanted a little money back, too.

The Internet, consequently, has grown-up in the midst of a stormy relationship and the impact on its personality has been profound. If ever there was a child that needed a little play time, it has been the Internet.

Listen to the shrill voices of it’s guardians: Be accountable. Don’t skulk. Answer me! Act responsively. You get nothing until the work is done. Why can’t you behave like a grown-up? What’s it worth to you? What’s the matter with you? Why are you crying? Here, try this. Try this. Try this! 

Michael Kinsley said in his 2001 article, “Information has been free all along. It’s the Internet that wants to enslave it.” Funny how that statement rings true as it pertains to the other partner in the relationship, the advertiser. Do you hear the echo? It resonates through the whole matter.

It’s a tough time to be a media child. You really have to wonder about the parents.

Is Hulu like TV?

MediaPost’s “Around the Net in Online Marketing” directed us to this story today about Hulu in The Economist. The upshot seems to be that Hulu may have broken the code on having a successful video business online, although the article is appropriately cautious at the end saying, “It’s too early to declare Hulu the winner.” (I suppose that means the winner over YouTube). From the sound of things Hulu is sold out of advertising space, which means prices should go up, which certainly sounds successful.

I was talking with someone about Hulu this week, however, who made a smart observation: Yes, Hulu is successful attracting an audience and selling some ads against it; but, does Hulu constitute a successful video model online in the way we ought to think about it? Is Hulu like TV?

Probably not. Hulu is a product of TV. Hulu is a line extension. TV develops the audience and Hulu simply adds value to it by letting The Office fans experience their favorite bits over and over again. Could Hulu develop an original program audience on its own worthy of sold-out sponsorship? Probably not. At least, not yet. Original video programming online has struggled to find a sponsor. It’s not for lack of audience; YouTube is big. So, it’s not device driven; Hulu proves people will sit in front of a computer screen to watch programs. The problem is simply the one that infects online media, generally, which is an umbilical attachment to the safety of offline media brands. It’s a fetal thing.

Eventually we’ll grow out of it. At that point Hulu may appear to lack the freshness and authenticity that would make it like – well – the Internet.