US Venture Partners: Why PodTech?

Paul Matteucci, Partner of US Venture Partners, talks about why they invested $5.5 million in PodTech at this week's Stanford Journalism Innovation Summit.

Says Paul, "People are relying less on journalists since they can now go directly to their audiences. San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News used to be where it was at – if it wasn’t there, it wasn’t anywhere, and now its everywhere."

He also talked about how advertisers can now go directly to the public - they can get their message to their audiences through a channel like blogs and podcasts, and they can directly measure the results of their messages. Now, you can measure almost anything. Machines can generate content, you don’t necessarily need people anymore to generate ‘all your content.’

So why did they invest? They're tapping into the social media niche; the world that now allows 'anyone' to be a publisher. With this opening, a podcasting 'network' like PodTech makes sense. Why? Ten reasons, he says:

1. Channel Creates News.
--we see a cool website, we want one too, so everyone can now create a site/blog easier than they've ever been able to before.

2. Consumers Decide
--consumers are deciding where and when. "I choose what ads I want to consume by clicking on them."

--manifestations continue to crop up, TiVo, satellite radio, mashups, bloggers, podcasting, etc. Mashups are becoming more and more important.

--the next idea? cross platform presentation via IP and wireless.

3. No editors are required. You can do directly to the reporter, and directly to raw news feeds. You can also go directly to live shots via personal cell phone numbers, i.e., London bombings. AND, you can get real time text messaging and blogging from eye witnesses......all news feeds at once via a mash-up or RSS.

4. Two Billion Editors
--everyone has always had an opinion, now they can publish it, i.e., blogs, podcasts and more. Video is becoming hot.

5. Audience Aggregation
--if you can aggregate an audience, you can become famous and influence the world.

--let's look at long tail audiences. Interested in eastern Devonian gas shales? Someone else probably is too. He suggests - find them, attract them and sell them to people who sell equipment for extracting gas from them.

6. Journalism as a Brand
--when content source dominates distribution channels, journalism entrepreneurs can bypass those who today control their work experience.

--today's innovation journalists on the net.

7. Impact of Measure-able Media
--traditional media means paying more and more for less and less. TV audience continues to shrink as ad rates increase.

--traditional media measurement is a big lie. We do not watch 5.5 hours per day.

--measurement of user-created content is coming.

8. Advertisers can go direct.
--regular customer is extremely targeted and we can get to repeat buyers.

9. Auto-created content
--bots create mashups.

--Topix creates the baseball game wrap-up article from the box score, without human interaction.

--the idea is that if you know what you want, you can program a computer to get it, organize it, edit it and present it.

10. Business Models Exist
--the cost model makes the top line less formidable.

--if the cost of creating and maintaining a distribution channel is a few hundred $$ a year, a couple of #M in revenue is a nice personal business.

--bloggers become the millionaire next door.

--if you can aggregate an audience, or have a product people want, a big player will drop in a business model.
--Google AdSense, Audible, etc.

He concludes: Let's look at how many new ways new media is changing the face of journalism.