Trent, thanks. To the Si Board - who are our competitors? Who do compare to? Who is iNEXTV up against in bringing our business model to the 'Net?
Here is an article from sales and marketing management mag describing for (bold is mine) me where our Microsoft and Yahoo! deals place us in ranking:
NBC Pulls Plug on Internet Venture
Does the downfall of NBCi signal disaster for online advertisers?
An offline brand doesn’t always translate well in the online world. NBC is learning that lesson
the hard way, announcing this week that it will spend $85 million to buy all outstanding shares
of NBCi, it’s Internet spin off, and probably shut down most of those operations.
While the downfall of another dot-com doesn’t signal the end of online advertising, it does
illustrate a trend in what advertisers and visitors are looking for on the Internet. Gina Furgele,
senior vice president and director of interactive marketing at Hampel/Stefanides, an advertising
agency based in New York, says big content providers that don’t offer utility won’t last. "It’s
not really surprising to see content-oriented sites fail," she says. "Regardless of a name brand,
advertisers want to see that it’s a destination for users, that it’s the best at what it does, or
offers a real technology solution, such as a unique targeting capability."
Smaller Web portals that got into the game early on are finding they’re keeping a hold on the
market, even in the face of competition like NBCi. Furgele says that’s because the smaller
portals can offer more to advertisers. "They have better business models," she says. "They’re
getting a more niche audience and really targeted users, so it makes sense to [advertise on]
these sites."
The site was attracting about 15.4 million unique visitors in February and was ranked 14th in
the United States, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, a market research firm in New York.
But NBCi trailed far behind industry leaders such as AOL Time Warner, Microsoft, and
Yahoo—sites that have older, more trusted names. "A lot of our clients ask us if it’s still worth
it to advertise online," Furgele says. "It is, but people are getting more savvy about where they
advertise now. There’s a certain role for online advertising and big content sites are not
offering anything distinctive enough." —Erin Strout |
