The San Francisco Diggers of the 1960s used to feed the hungry in Golden Gate Park between theatrical perfornances. But there’s a new group of Diggers in the Bay Area these days. And The New York Times says they just got VC funding for a video production unit.
In 2004, Jay Adelson, 36, and Kevin Rose, 29, started Digg, a fast-growing Web site that allows users to play editor by submitting links to news accounts around the Internet and collectively deciding which deserve top billing.
Now, while they are still very much involved with Digg, Mr. Adelson and Mr. Rose are preparing to announce that they have turned the Revision3 Corporation, an Internet video production firm they have been running on the side, into a full-fledged company.
Revision3 has close to $1 million in financing from a group of investors that includes Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape, and Greylock Partners, a venture capital firm that has backed the start-ups Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as Digg.
It is trying to capitalize on the rapid growth of Internet video, and its founders hope that their programming formula, a hybrid of the polished shows created for the networks and the amateur videos that populate sites like YouTube, will be the path to commercial success in this medium.
Stalin said “quantity is a quality all of its own” and as much as I don’t like to quote people, I think his quote encompasses a lot of thinking that is happening in the Silicon Valley today. It is really interesting to see Silicon Valley investors split into these two camps (Quality vs. Quantity) in search for “commercial success.” As desktop editing follows the path of its founding father, desktop publishing, and user-generated video distribution continues to take root, it is obvious that we will see a natural market shift towards a demand for raw, uber-creative content. The real winners will be the ones that hold the rights to the exclusive events and/or represent the best talent. Looking backwards on the likes of HBO, NBC, ESPN (all best in class) this has always been their formula. New media companies like Revision3 and ManiaTV (http://www.maniatv.com) that are capitalizing on this perfect storm must seek out ways to marry the edgy, real-time spirit of user-generated video with high-dollar quality images AND exclusivity. If they can do this, they will have hit a sweet spot. Amateur filmmakers seem up to the challenge. In the end, it all comes down to finding a way to keep production budgets down while delivering the quality the market has come to expect.
One trend that I am starting to see and really like is the re-editing of new stories from existing archives. It makes sense as it allows the editors/producers to apply their creativity to the millions of dollars of production value that already exists rather than spending their time creating from scratch.