Around 250,000 unique users have visited during its first two months of operations GlobalPost.com, a Boston-based for-profit online news venture. Since its debut on Jan. 12, GlobalPost.com got 1.1 million page views.
With 65 correspondents worldwide, its economy is based on advertising and on access to paid sections ($199 a year), which include exclusive reports on business topics, conference calls and meetings with reporters, and breaking news e-mail messages from those journalists. GlobalPost wants to create a feeling of community for subscribers, and for that, it allows them to suggest article ideas, avoiding seeing newsrooms as impenetrable and fortresslike.
So far less than 30 people have signed up for subscriptions. The site is depending on marketing partnership to generate subscriptions, some discounted, and hopes to have more than 2,000 by year’s end. In the meantime, advertising remains slow.
A third revenue stream based on selling their reports to other news outlets has been growing
GlobalPost correspondents are paid a basic compensation of $1,000 a month for four articles, plus shares in the venture. The site had 500 applicants for the jobs. When in the field, correspondents carry inexpensive Flip digital video cameras.
The site was started with $8.5 million from private investors.
Babelgum going Flash-only
Babelgum.com has redesigned its site again, finally going Flash-only, allowing viewers to watch videos from within the browser with no plug-in required. Also, this European company has unveiled its mobile app for the U.S. market (next month it will unveil an app for the G1 phone).
In a crowded online market, Babelgum, headquartered in London, has been searching for what it should be. In 2007 and 2008 lost several senior execs. Now it is targeting the indie film and documentary segment.
Ustream Signs Sun & Oracle for Paid Webcasts
Ustream has managed to infiltrate the corporate webcast market with its new Watershed white-label live video service, launched a month ago. The Mountain View based startup has signed Oracle, Duke, Sun, UC Berkeley and Sling as customers.
Sun is already using Watershed for earning calls and internal webcasts and Oracle plans to live broadcasting from all its some 8,000 worldwide events this year. Meanwhile, university professors are able to stream live and chat with students with just a laptop and webcam.
Watershed is a pay-as-you-go service, roughly costing $1 per hour (and further saving if you commit to more hours.)
Ustream is also adding mobile broadcasting capabilities, limited for now to high-end Nokia handsets. Competitors in the consumer space like Qik have moved onto other platforms, such as BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.
Video mash-ups – An engaging broadband video experience… and a compelling tactic to drive viewers and monetization
Video mash-up or also called re-mix apps are user-edited applications, and they can be a clever way to engage users with brands, create new video ad views, and become a cheap source of viral marketing. A great example is Wwe.com. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has launched an innovative user-video application called “Smash-Ups” (with a $5,000 prize to the user who creates the best clip).
Long-form video can be segmented and made available to users. These passionate fans can edit the segment provided, and insert audio tracks and title cards. The maximum clip length is 2 minutes. Users can share their creations with embed code or vide email.
WWE is monetizing the clips through both sponsorships and ads. A pre-roll or mid-roll is inserted up to a maximum frequency of 1 ad per 2 minutes of content. WWE promotes the Smash-Ups enlisting its superstars to make their own videos which are posted on YouTube.
The Smash-Ups are powered by Gotuit, a company also powering Major League Soccer’s “QuickKics” video portal and remix and Lifertime’s “Movie Mash-up” feature.
Also recently, NFL has had success with its NFL “Replay Re-Cutter” launched last fall.
