It’s been 25 years since the World Wide Web became available to the public and now more than half of the world’s population uses the internet and there are more smartphones on the planet than people. What once took radio 38 years to reach a population of 50 million, took the internet only four years. Now, over 100,000 tweets are sent, over 2 million Google queries are made, over 50,000 apps are downloaded, and over $300,000 is spent online EVERY SECOND, making digital media more than a technical revolution, but a business must. On today’s ‘Dot Complicated with Randi Zuckeberg’ to discuss the digital media revolution is Ezra Kucharz who led the digital media transition for CBS, and Jonathan Dube, digital executive and innovator for such past clients as AOL and Disney and the current head of digital strategy for over-the-top video for William Morris Endeavor / IMG Worldwide.
“I’ve always led my career like Forrest Gump. It sort of just happened.”
“I managed to get a civilian job at NASA after the first Gulf War. I started out as a medical mission controller. We put up 11 Space Shuttles in 18 months.”
“NASA sent me to business school at night. I have friends who are astronauts so they said get a PhD so I went to Duke. I was trying to set myself up to get an interview.”
“There’s a new thing called the internet in 1994 at Duke. I explained to Coach K at Duke so they decided to hire me to build websites and audio streaming for sports clients. We had 25 clients by accident. We sold the company to NBC Sports in late 2000.”
“I’ve always taken the philosophy of working hard and good things happen.”
“I got to know a lot of people in sports in over 20 years. Coach K is by far the most innovative and progressive I’ve met yet. He’s still a good friend.”
“I’ve taken up a faculty role at Duke now. I do consulting and advising to major media companies as well as investing.”
“When you look at the landscape now, digital media has changed. There’s going to be a shakeout not a consolidation. Things are going to struggle to generate revenue.”
“I’m the cleanup crew when people have a problem.”
“We’re getting away from the digital revolution of glowing rectangles. Now it’s more about tech-enabled services. I order Shake Shake on my phone. I can design something online or mobile. We’re entering the Third Industrial Revolution: Chatbots and AI.”
“Amazon knows me really well so it knows what I want to buy.”
“We have definitely become an at-home, on-demand world.”
“The ability to get things delivered, even same day now, stores are become unnecessary.”
“If you own a local restaurant you don’t care about people clicking on your ad. You want people walking in your door. I try to figure out what they key metric is. What gets people in the door.”
“Email is really the most effective marketing skill. They are only a few companies that have got this skill down.”
“Data drives your marketing. It’s important to figure out what works for your business.”
“If you’re a small business you don’t care if someone clicks your ad.”
“There’s no better direct marketing tool than Facebook but if you have to reach a lot of people quickly there’s nothing better than TV. Brands that mix media types do really well.”
“ESPN spends money on rights and makes money on their shows. But it’s so commoditized that it becomes about cost, who can do it at the cheapest price.”
“Scripted content is working right now. When you pay for Netflix or Hulu it’s almost never perishable and commoditized content.”
“How many different places can you get your weather? Meanwhile people are spending million to do weather. It’s a hard thing for people to hear.”
“You have to think about the at-home, on-demand world. People are focused on live and scripted content.”
“Live sports works incredibly well, live music does not. You can find a show from someone’s video.”
“There are seismic changes coming to the world. 1.8 million people who work in driving will be put out of work by 2020. What are these people doing now for job training? People should be looking at how to code.”
“I was really interested in computers and started reporting in newspapers. I remember working on my computer and reading AOL and thinking ‘This is what I want to do.'”
“Columbia Journalism School was one of the only schools that had a computer journalism class. I was known as the ‘Gif Guy.”
“From Columbia I went to the Charlotte Observer. We were posting the first blog on a news site.”
“Alexa and Google can be programmed to talk to each other.”
“Over the Top Video (OTT) means video delivered over the internet versus over cable or over the air. Netflix to sports like MLB to Hulu.”
“The reason OTT is being used so frequently is because there’s a massive shift from traditional TV to streaming services like Netflix.”
“Traditional TV is a tremendously large economy and they’re shifting now to OTT. There will be a big impact.”
“It’s key to have a strong social presence right now. Be smart about engaging with customers.”
“So much of ad spending in America has switched to Google and Facebook.”
“Amazon has a bookstore in Columbus Circle. It’s display oriented like an airport bookstore. It’s focused on their own products like Prime and Alexa and you pay retail prices unless you are a Prime member.”
“There is still value in live rights, particularly in sports. ESPN doesn’t have that much value anymore. But live is still valuable and pressure. That’s why there was a huge bidding war for Thursday night football. Amazon beat out Twitter this year.”
“There’s two effective ways to capture attention: Scripted and live sports.”
“A major artist will release a new album entirely live over the internet.”
“People need to continually be teaching themselves or creating a side hustle.”
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