Author: nextmgmt

JIMMY HUTCHESON: FUTURE OF ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT (CBS MONEY WATCH)

Jimmy Hutcheson is the Founder and President of EgoTVonline.com, an online entertainment network that creates original shows focusing on celebrities, pop-culture, business, sports and music. It’s “CNBC for an MTV generation”. Jimmy talks about creating content for this new medium and the struggles of building a business from scratch. A new industry of web broadcast entertainment has sprouted out of the success of youtube and a host of other second and third movers into the online video space. Though it is yet unclear how large this industry will become, we’re certain that viewers are spending a lot less time in front of the television and a lot more time online.

A Virtual Studio The challenge for Hutcheson and others is how to capitalize on this trend and capture some of the value it has created. Unlike YouTube, EgoTVonline is largely propped up by original content that it produces inhouse. It’s technically considered a studio and its own network. The site is largely built off of original content from individuals such as celebrities, trainers, models ,TV personalities and the like. For example, I paroused the site recently and came upon a “Dr. 90210-style” docu-series called “Dr. Botox”, a show that bluntly conveys the drama in the life of Dr. Kenny Siporin. This particular episode talked about his recent relationship with a 19 year girl whom he once had as a patient. Talk about mixing work and play!! The show is a take-off on the ever intriguing notion that Hollywood plastic surgeons have somehow become celebrities in their own right and have been just as able to dip their feet into the life of excess, starlets, sex, and partying that other real celebrities have been known to get involved with.

Some other note worthy shows I came across on EgoTV were “So Fresh and So Cheap” a style guide reality series that attempts to make fashionistas out of your every day person with a little help from the best thrift stores in America. “Dream Jobs”, a show hosted by comedian Tom Arnold. Rather than showcasing traditional corporate jobs “Dream Jobs” looks at unconventional careers such as belly dancing, in a tongue and cheek, yet still respectable manner. And lastly “EgoScoop” hosted by Jason ‘Gummi Bear’ Davis, is a edgier version of E! News that gives a behind the scenes look into the life and times of Hollywood.

EgotTVonline has enough going for it to feed the ferocious appetites of even the biggest celebritaniac. We just hope that it is able to continue monetizing and figuring out a way to offer compensation for top talent. Because as we all know, in the world of entertainment nothing comes cheap. For Hutcheson, the magic formula has been to balance growth with low cost production and advertising.

Starting A Company vs Buying Companies

Starting a new business is never easy. Buying a business and fixing it is also never easy. There is nothing quite like the excitement of building an idea from scratch. Being an operator of a successful business is exhilarating. Acquiring companies feels good when you know you can help and turn a dollar into $10 with a few tweaks. Investment bankers, venture capital firms, and fellow entrepreneurs have opinions of buying vs starting companies. I’m exploring which path to go down as I contemplate opportunities.

If I really examine the advice I’ve received, I’ve realized that it’s really all about the people. Being intentional about surrounding yourself with incredible people is so vital, and keeping a good relationship with those people is important.

I’d rather build a start up with great people and have it fail vs acquiring something with losers, and vice versa. Many times, those of us who are experienced entrepreneurs see something that is broken and we think we can fix it. We usually can! But, it requires discipline and focus to choose what we want to fix. Am I disciplined enough to fix someone else’s problem (an acquired asset), or motivated enough to start an idea from scratch?

After you develop an expertise, you often find opportunities to help other people with their businesses. In my digital career thus far, I’ve had the fortune to work alongside some of the biggest names in the media business, including Rich Battista the President of Time Inc. I’ve acquired niche digital publishing businesses, and sold my digital media startup to the co-founder of Maker Studios, Danny Zappin. I’ve created. I’ve bought. I’ve sold. I now find myself wrestling with this question: do I go out and start another company with some amazing co-founders, or do I buy a group of under-valued companies and help improve them. I’ve been approached to do both. In order to help me decide what I should do, I’m going to outline the pros and cons of both scenarios.

Pros of Starting A Company From Scratch:

  1. Choosing People. Build your team, and unite your team around a to-be-created product vision
  2. No “baggage” — you’re building from scratch
  3. Excitement and anticipation of the “wild, wild, west”

Cons of Starting A Company From Scratch:

  1. It’s lonely in the beginning
  2. It’s very tough to communicate to people what something “will be” in the future vs showing people something you’ve acquired that is already built.

Pros of Buying Companies:

  1. Pre-existing customers
  2. Workers are already in place, and know their responsibilities

Cons of Buying Companies:

  1. Legacy leadership that is resistant to change
  2. Skeletons in the closet, including possible undisclosed legal issues

I’d love to hear what you think.

ONLINE MAGAZINE PUBLISHER HUTCH MEDIA ACQUIRES ANTI-TABLOID SITE RUMORFIX.COM FROM DR. PHIL

Online magazine publishing company Hutch Media today acquired the anti-tabloid entertainment website RumorFix.com, created by Jay McGraw.

Jay McGraw is the creator and executive producer of the Emmy® award-winning, syndicated daytime series “The Doctors,” a New York Times best-selling author, start-up developer, and the son of Dr. Phil McGraw.

“With strong market traction and a unique heritage in the celebrity news marketplace, the Hutch Media team is thrilled to add RumorFix to our growing family of entertainment and instructional content,” said Jimmy Hutcheson, president of Hutch Media.  “We intend to maintain the integrity of the brand, integrate RumorFix into Hutch Media’s platform, grow revenues, and expand the audience distribution footprint of RumorFix.”

“RumorFix was an important business venture for us.  With the proliferation of tabloid sites, I set out to provide a legitimate and safe forum for celebrities to “fix” false rumors while at the same time, satiate consumers’ never-ending hunger for celebrity news. The site’s success exceeded our expectations and I’m excited to watch its further development and scope under the expert guidance of Hutch Media.  Jimmy Hutcheson and his team are skilled in content development, marketing, distribution and monetization in the online publishing arena and it will be rewarding to follow RumorFix as it continues to flourish under their direction,” said Jay McGraw.

ZEALOT BUYS SMALL PUBLISHER, HINTS AT FUTURE

Hinting at its ambitions to enter the original publishing realm, digital agency Zealot Networks of Venice has purchased Hutch Media, a small network of websites, for an undisclosed amount of cash and equity.

Since its founding last August, Zealot has raised $30 million in venture capital it has deployed to buy a number of online marketing and talent agencies. With Hutch in the fold, Zealot’s desire to build new audiences, likely to sell advertisements against, is beginning to appear.

Hutch is a small Los Angeles company that has five employees and runs RumorFix, a celebrity rumor website; HGDIY, a home improvement website; and BestMomsTV, a parenting site. Conn Fishburn, Zealot Networks’ chief strategy officer, said the purchase underscores Zealot’s interest in building targeted content for niche audiences.

“When we look at publishing, relevancy is a massive opportunity to tap into people’s passions,” said Fishburn. “It’s a bigger play around creating relevancy and engagement and telling stories across specific verticals.”

Interest in niche content, seen as a way to build smaller audiences with intense interests as opposed to large, unfocused audiences, is growing.

“When you start to look at distribution of communities and clusters of people, the long tail is where you see the social engagement,” said Fishburn. Niche audiences are generally found on the “long tail” of the audience distribution graph.

“The primary driver of what we are doing isn’t demographic based, but psychographic based. It’s a mindset,” he said.

Zealot’s approach to making money from online content is the reverse of most modern media operations. Rather than first publishing content, building an audience around that content and then selling that audience to advertisers, Zealot has used investor cash to purchase relationships with advertisers first, in order to apparently reverse engineer audiences and content for particular marketing needs.

Hutch, said Fishburn, is just the beginning.

“We bought Hutch because of the skill set that Hutch has, their ability to understand audiences and their ability to scale up with extra resources,” he said. “It’s really the team that will be integrated into a larger publishing play.”

VIRAL VIDEOS PANEL – TOP 5 TIPS FROM DISNEY, TMZ AND ENTERTAINMENT LEADERS

Digital entertainment leaders from Disney, TMZ, Ego TV, writers and creative agencies shared viral video tips at a Digital LA event on Tuesday night in Santa Monica, CA. To bring you the scoop, below are the Top 5 Viral Video Tips from this panel who know how to reach mass audiences online. From the “Whole Foods Parking Lot” video to Ego TV who focuses on reaching a male 18-35 demographic, these pros know how to reach millions of viewers on YouTube. While there is a method behind the viral video madness, one panelist profoundly pointed out, “Trying to go viral is like trying to fall in love.” Most of us have not given up on true love so let’s not give up here, and take a closer look at these tips.

Invested Partners makes bold move in tech sector

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Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.

Continue Reading

Easily add videos to posts

Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.

Continue Reading

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