IAC Archive

NY-based CollegeHumor, part of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI) has picked up a major distribution deal with Joost beginning today.  CollegeHumor currently claims 6 million unique readers a month and more than 200 million monthly page views. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

CollegeHumor’s CHTV original videos will be made available on Joost through the newly launched "CHTV: CollegeHumor Original Videos" Joost channel.

This is a good move for CollegeHumor to potentially get a new stream of viewers and site visitors. Could we see CollegeHumor on VirginAmerica soon following Revision3?

The site pulls in videos from around the Web and also publishes their own original videos. Here is one of the safe-for-work videos:

NY-based IAC is shaking up management across some of their divisions today. Let’s see if I can give you the nitty gritty on the changes.

• Jim Safka has been named CEO of Ask.com. He will also continue in his role as CEO of Primal Ventures, a new-venture entity that identifies seeds and incubates business opportunities for IAC.
• Jim Lanzone is out as CEO of Ask.com to serve as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Venture Capital firm, Redpoint Ventures.
• Scott Garell has been named President of Ask.com, where he will report to Mr. Safka noted above.
• John Park will replace Mr. Garell and is named President of IAC Consumer Applications and Portals, which includes Smiley Central, Webfetti, Zwinky, My Fun Cards, CursorMania, Popular Screensavers, Excite.com, iWon, and My Way. Can you imagine telling people you are the President of Zwinky?
• Peter Horan, CEO of IAC Media and Advertising since January 2007, will continue to oversee IAC Advertising Solutions as well as Evite, Pronto, IAC Mobile and Ask Sponsored Listings.

Most of the changes revolve around search engine Ask. Yesterday at the Citibank conference, IAC head Barry Diller said, “We certainly have not bitten an inch out of the hide of Google…I’ve been daunted by the progress of that.”

I said this as part of my review of the Wikia Search engine and have said it before regarding Mahalo. The switching costs for search engines are very high currently. Google is the Kleenex of search and so there’s really no reason to switch. And advertisements like the ones Ask ran earlier this year don’t help matters. Barry/Jim, I’ve got plenty of ideas on how to turn things around. Give me a call sometime. In addition, I wrote a lengthy piece in April with ways to fix Ask.

Yesterday we learned that the NFL and Ticketmaster have joined together in a partnership to form a rival to eBay’s StubHub. Ticketmaster is owned by IAC (Nasdaq:IACI).

Today it’s the NHL. The National Hockey League has signed a deal with Ticketmaster to create a resale service. Ticketmaster is now known as the "Official Resale Ticket Provider of the NHL."

They note in the release, "The NHL resale ticketing service will provide fans looking to buy or sell NHL tickets a safe, convenient and league-endorsed resale platform." I like how they call it safe. What they really mean is a "way for us to make bushels of cash on you".

Eric Korman, Ticketmaster Executive Vice President then said, "Hockey fans will benefit from greater protection, flexibility and the unparalleled efficiency of our technology. The NHL wins by providing to fans the ability to resell tickets in a safe and secure environment. Our partnership will also make it easier for the League and its teams to connect with its millions of fans directly."

What he really means is that Ticketmaster will make money coming and going. So now you buy a ticket for a game, pay the ripoff Ticketmaster fee and you can instantly turn around and sell it on the resale service and pay another fee! It’s very smart, I give them that.

It’d be interesting to get a report from Ticketmaster showing how many people buy tickets only to a moment later resell them. 

IAC (Nasdaq:IACI) is announcing a partnership today with Brightcove to "giving IAC businesses the opportunity to launch comprehensive high quality Internet video initiatives". The first IAC brands to utilize the new partnership are: Ticketmaster, Citysearch and 23/6.

Now I get why they did this — it’s about distribution. IAC Chairman Barry Diller even notes at this with his comment on the deal, "By making this platform available across IAC we can continue to deepen engagement with our online audiences, expand the reach of our brands, and open powerful new revenue streams through online video advertising across our sites."

But where’s IAC-owned Vimeo in all of this? While I know Vimeo is a community-based video sharing site, couldn’t Barry have created a white-labeled version of the system and monetized it using the IAC advertising network? While I don’t think this means Vimeo is doomed by any means, it sure is interesting that they selected to go outside before thinking about their own properties and how to leverage them for growth.

A survey out today from IAC and JWT shows that Chinese youth lead American youth in digital self-expression online. The "Young Digital Mavens" study aimed to explore how attitudes toward digital technology are changing among Chinese and American youth at a time when people are spending less time with traditional media and more with interactive technology.

"The Chinese people seem to be way ahead of Americans in living a digital life," noted IAC Chairman and CEO Barry Diller today in Beijing.

This survey comes at the same time as Mr. Diller announcing plans to epand IAC and the Ask.com search engine into China, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Some snippits from the survey:

While many Westerners debate whether online experiences and relationships are "real," far fewer Chinese have doubts. As many as 82 percent of young Chinese agreed that "Interactivity helps create intimacy, even at a distance," compared with just 36 percent of young Americans. And almost two- thirds (63 percent) of Chinese respondents agreed that "It’s perfectly possible to have real relationships purely online with no face-to-face contact," vs. only 21 percent of Americans.

Chinese culture may have a reputation for being far more sexually conservative than American culture, but strikingly, three times as many Chinese as Americans (32 percent vs. 11 percent) were willing to admit that the Internet has broadened their sex life.

Chinese respondents were also more likely than Americans to say they have expressed personal opinions or written about themselves online (72 percent vs. 56 percent).

"One of the biggest differences between American and Chinese youth is in attitudes toward anonymity," says Doctoroff. "In the U.S., with its cult of celebrity, young Americans see the Internet as a way of getting known, of building their personal brand; many regard the Internet as a kind of personal broadcasting medium. But whereas publicizing your name, face and opinions is seen as a step toward success in the U.S., in China it has been a surefire way of veering into dangerous territory. So for young Chinese, the Internet is the ideal place to air opinions and hear what others think without crossing the line."

And here is the Appendix graph for reference: