OnlineMediaTips.com

I am breaking my rule about taking Saturday’s off to salute Frank Barnako. Frank’s covered the tech industry at MarketWatch for a decade. He was always fair and always covered stories that I cared about.

Most importantly, Frank covered podcasting. He was one of the first “mainstream” journalists to cover our industry, and I will really miss reading his blog.

Happy Trails Frank and thanks for helping to shine a little light on our corner of the world.

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Well we know we’ve arrived. The online media industry must be real. How do I know? The lawyers are here. (All we need next is the hookers. The lawyers and the hookers tend to show up anyplace there’s money. I’m not suggesting they’re in any way connected. You can if you like, make that connection yourself.)

Everyone is suing everyone. Viacom is suing Google. EFF is suing Viacom. Starz Network is suing Disney. And as usual, it seems like Sony and the RIAA are suing anyone who has a pulse.

ENOUGH!

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Google (and others) has announced PPA - Pay-per-action ads. (http://services.google.com/payperaction/)

This allows advertisers to define an expected result such as a user downloading a demo version of software or buying a book. When that action takes place (and only when that action takes place) the publisher of the ad gets paid.

Here’s the problem with PPA and other recent advertising schemes aimed at requiring online media advertising sellers to perform at levels over and above their competition. . . It isn’t fair!
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When people ask me why I’m so bullish on podcasting and online media in general, I always reply - disintermediation.

And all the evidence of late backs up my position.

Look at the performance of some of the big media companies…

Ad pages at Time magazine were down 23.8% in 2006 from 2000, according to Publishers Information Bureau. Newsweek’s ad pages fell about 17.6% in the same period.

The New York Times’ stock has fallen 50% since 2002.

CD sales are off 20%.

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I read Frank Barnako every day of the week. While I don’t always agree with him, I know he’s very close to the stories I care about, and he’ll always give a fair account.

Frank’s recent story on Rocketboom does give me pause. And it’s not because I think Frank got anything wrong. It’s because some people assume that since Rocketboom is a high-profile show, it somehow acts as an indicator of our industry’s situation.

And if that’s the case, I couldn’t possibly disagree more. Here’s why.

Andrew Baron is the man behind Rocketboom. He’s been quoted as saying that the show isn’t meeting his revenue expectations. If that’s accurate, then I suggest we look at some basic business principles.

Let me begin by saying I don’t know Andrew and have never met him. He may be a very smart guy - or not.

But I have seen evidence of some bad decision-making on his part. And I’ve heard or read text of his talks on new media. In many of those talks, he makes statements that cause me to question his business sense.

So there’s no long story here. Just a simple reminder. If Andrew can’t make a go of it with Rocketboom, that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with the show or that consumers won’t support new media properties. It could be something just as simple as Andrew needs some good business consulting to turn things around.

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