The biggest names in the tech industry seem to have collectively decided it's time to make the billions. Sure Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have sold some ads and Foursquare brokered some promotional deals. But with the second wave of IPOs on the horizon and investors' eyeballs getting as round as the tech bubble, the time is nigh for tech demigods to show that they can make money off all those users they've spent years accumulating. And hopefully not alienate them in the process. Today, Mark Zuckerberg inched closer to that dream of a trillion dollars by offering streaming movies — and tanking Netflix's stock. Meanwhile, YouTube closed a deal on a production company presumably to make its very own content. Intel cast a wide net to examine tech companies' latest money-making ventures. Then we looked into our CrystalBall app to see what they might try next.
Facebook
Moneymaker: Warner Bros. just became the first Hollywood studio to stream movies directly on the social network. Facebook has been making a big move toward e-commerce lately, and the fact that you have to use Facebook Credits to buy movies and TV shows could be the tipping point to get users to hand their credit card info over to Mark Zuckerberg. Plus, studios looking for a way to stop Netflix's growth might not make Facebook suffer the same 28-day waiting period for new content.
Downside: At 30 credits (or $3) for a 48-hour rental for The Dark Knight, it will cost you. Plus, you have to "like" the movie or the director to get the privilege. Do you really want hundreds of your Facebook friends to see you "liked" and watched Valentine's Day on Valentine's Day?
What's next: Why should you use a credit card to buy Facebook Credits when you can use Zuckerbills (coming to a U.S. Treasury in 2020)?
Twitter
Moneymaker: In order to make money off its free iPhone app, this weekend Twitter introduced a number of new features, including Quickbar, a "forced trending topics bar" that includes promoted tweets — negating the idea of a service that quickly shows you what's actually trending.
Downside: Pundit John Gruber quickly dubbed the feature "Dickbar" after Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, but Gruber issued the unfortunate nickname on Twitter and it was widely retweeted. Advantage Costolo.
What's next: Can we pay someone to monitor our Twitter feed for us? It's getting overwhelming. Either that or design personalized lists of the best people to follow based on what's important to us, like updates on Libya and breaking bear-cub news.
Foursquare
Moneymaker: At SXSW this week, Foursquare is set to announce a partnership with American Express that will link users' credit cards with their Foursquare accounts. The incentive to consumers? Deals like "spend $5, save $5" at participating merchants. Although Foursquare said its motivation is to increase membership and loyalty and that it won't charge Amex for the privilege, it's hard to believe that will stay the case if it catches on.
Downside: We don't have an Amex card. And (confession) although we use the app for recommendations, we've never actually checked in anywhere. Sorry, Dennis and Naveen! But if they add other credit cards, we would.
What's next: How about a service that warns you beforehand if you're about to friend one of those compulsive people who check in with handfuls of people at name-dropping locales?
YouTube
Moneymaker: YouTube just closed a deal to buy Internet video company Next New Networks, the producers behind Auto-Tune the News, for less than $50 million. Although rumor had it that Google was trying to get into the video-production business, Business Insider reports that the move is actually designed to help existing YouTube partners make "more and better content." Which then leads to more users and, subsequently, more expensive ads.
Downside: Isn't YouTube's strength either grainy weird viral videos or pirated television, movie, and music content? The second could definitely use better quality, but does it even matter for the former?
What's next: How about veering into Hulu territory?
Skype
Moneymaker: Just regular old advertising on the Windows version of its paid video communications service.
Downside: Although Skype says it won't show ads during the video conferencing yet, this could devolve into a Minority Report-style advertising assault.
What's next: Would it be possible to embed microphone/receiver in our brain so we don't have to use the special headset? Just curious.
Update: TechCrunch makes an important clarification. Facebook hasn't announced its own streaming movie service. Rather the movie offering comes from Warner Brothers app that uses Facebook Credits' payment system. But if it proves successful and other studios follow suit, Zuckberg can still count on more personal credit card info coming his way. Someone better go tell Netflix's shareholders.
UPDATE, my original post is below. I tuned in for the Charlie Sheen show, but only about 200,000 people were in the channel at peak and the show was very boring and viewers quickly went away. So, this won’t be the “event” that proves this post’s thesis right.
UPDATE2: Ustream now claims that more than 666,000 views were generated during the course of the hour last night. Wild.
+++++++++++++++
Tonight Charlie Sheen will be on Ustream.tv in what could be a massive night for that video network. How massive? Sheen broke all records on Twitter, gaining 1.78 million followers in less than a week. No one else, not even Oprah or Obama or Beiber, has gotten so many so fast.
I talked with one of the guys involved, Barry Schuler, who told me his partner, Brad Wyman, is the one who convinced Sheen to tweet and convinced him to break all the rules, get rid of the press and PR, and go directly to his fans. Sheen’s show is part of “WyTV” on Ustream.
But that’s all fun and games compared to what YouTube is facing tonight.
See, YouTube looked like it was going to score the final touchdown in video. One where they were running down the field 50 yards ahead of the opponents, but 10 yards from the goal line it looks to me they are stumbling and fumbling the ultimate goal: where the entertainment comes over and starts making the real money.
See, as Apple’s Steve Jobs has shown the rest of the tech industry that we can live in a world without Microsoft (even Microsoft’s biggest partner, HP, shows off devices that don’t have any Microsoft code on them now) Charlie Sheen might be the guy who shows the entire entertainment industry that they can live in a world without YouTube.
Fumble!
See, we all know YouTube can stream live content. We’ve seen them do it with FarmAid, Haiti, and U2.
But they don’t let US live stream. Why? The entertainment industry lawyers hate that idea. They know that thousands of people will turn on live streams of the Oscars, of the SuperBowl, of their movies, and other things.
That is a box that they don’t want opened.
But Charlie Sheen might, tonight, open that box anyway and BLOW IT UP!
This is the day that YouTube could end up fumbling on its most important goal right before the REAL money starts coming to the Internet.
Winners?
Ustream, who should be counting their lucky stars (if their service stays up, already, with hours to go there are 650 people in the chat on Sheen’s channel).
*Amazon, who is ready with live video streaming service to jump in and compete with Netflix.
*Netflix, who already demonstrates to me every day they can stream live content and make money doing so.
* All these services need to do is let US stream and they win and knock YouTube’s ball right out of their hands.
It’s too bad that the Google of new isn’t as brash and fun to watch as the Google of old. The Google of old would have turned on video streaming long ago.
By the way, Google, this is one HUGE lever you have to get us all interested in owning a Google TV box and also getting us onto Android.
See, my iOS device isn’t very good at playing Ustream’s live streams.
But if you did live YouTube streams, I bet my Android devices and my Google TV would view those, right?
Now THAT is how to make my “apps are the only thing that matters” argument go away quickly!
But, instead, it looks like you’re fumbling the ball.
Go Charlie Go!
Photo credit: Leann Arthur (thank GOD for Creative Commons licensed images!)
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