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What can your business learn from Hulu?
In late 2006, the TV networks were just going about their business as usual, but then Google bought YouTube for an astounding $1.65 billion. "It seemed crazy to us," Zucker says. "That value was built principally on the back of our (Network TV) content."
Instead of suing YouTube for $1 billion, the way Viacom did, NBC and Fox founded NewCo to compete with it. Initially, they stuck to the corporate playbook, assigning teams from various departments at both networks to strategize. A few months in, more than 100 staffers met at the W Hotel in midtown Manhattan. It did not go well.
What Mike Lang, a News Corp. executive vice president and NewCo board member, saw was a pileup of competing visions designed to protect existing turf. We're dead, he thought to himself. The blogosphere came to the same conclusion, referring to the project as "ClownCo."
But then they changed their strategy
Hulu is a story about major media companies who are attempting to save their businesses by do something new: partnering rather than competing; sharing rather than hording. Faced with uncertain futures, and acknowledging the decline of music and print media in recent years, these companies are trying to change. This strategy might not prevent their ultimate obsolescence, but you gotta tip your hat to them for their effort.
What can your business learn from Hulu?
How are you using partnerships to grow your business? Share your thoughts here
If you enjoy interesting business case studies, then you should read the rest of this story at Fast Company.com.
Tags: business, design, media, technology
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mike Seidle on -
Hulu's lesson is that control as a business plan is dead.
-- Mike
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Permalink Reply by PK Koduri on -
There are many lessons here:
1. Take a chance on an industry outsider. Jason Kilar comes from a online retail background and may have looked like a misfit. This flies in the face of conventional recruiting techniques that many companies use. I have strong interest in biotech and life sciences, however I have lost count how many times I have been told that I did not have a life sciences background and therefore not a good fit. You want innovation, look for it outside your knowledge sphere.
2. Open Innovation is here and will be around for a long time. Fox and NBC came together to create Hulu. If they used the old standards of "what's in it for me" this venture would have never took off. Hulu is a classic case of 1+1=11. Both channels have gained incremental viewership that they otherwise wouldn't have. Indiana businesses can do the same thing. Why can't a group of web service providers get together and support startups with shared resources? I have an idea but don't know any PhP/MySQL developers to help me or usability experts to design my product. If there was a place to take my idea and have it validated or at least have a prototype developed it would be wonderful. But I don't know of any thing like this in Central Indiana.
3. Good Content is Cash is King
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Permalink Reply by Pat Coyle on -
@ PK Your wrote: I have an idea but don't know any PhP/MySQL developers to help me or usability experts to design my product. If there was a place to take my idea and have it validated or at least have a prototype developed it would be wonderful.
Maybe Techpoint.org could organize a fund for projects like this??
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