Next New Networks
27 October 2006 at 18:53 Filed in:
Projects
I decided to leave my job at AOL shortly after the
winamp and
spinner
acquisitions. There were a variety of reasons for this decision,
the most salient being the smartest of them: I believed that the
Cable Television business would start to become the dominant model
of "making money" online with programming/content and America
Online was not poised to win in that world. Even a year later with
the looming acquisition of Time-Warner, I did not believe America
Online could win. Sure, the cable model would need some
hybridization to escape it's pre-2000 form, but the cable model
would be more dominant than the "spots and dots" internet model...
especially in original programming/content. Personally, I was more
interested in the Internet as a media vehicle/outlet than I was as
a tool... despite having been part of some of the most
fundamentally revolutionary tools to come out of the triangle.
Some of which you might
us every day.
I shared this theory with many people: my AOL heroes like Danny Krifcher, Tom Hardart, Charlie Fink, and John Borthwick... my friends like Marc Goldberg, Mike Starkenburg, Steve Long, and Mark Buchheim... my family like my dad, wife, and cousin. People were generally supportive, somewhat confused but Charlie, John (both of them) and Danny understood my maddness. When Charlie Fink introduced me to Fred Seibert I knew what I needed to do if I was ever to be in a place to jump on my theory of the colliding industries. I could learn more from Fred in a year as a pawn at MTV Networks than I could any where else. He'd tell me tv if I told him about the Internet (ie: series of tubes).
Flash forward 5 or 6 years... 3 or 4 businesses... several emotional episodes... a near bankruptcy or 2... and the vision of what I saw at the other end of the rainbow has manifested itself:
Next New Networks
Early 'Next New Networks' logo authored by Herb's daughter in art class. Age: 6
Over the coming weeks, I'll be pulling the curtain back on this. Describing: What it is. Who we are. Why it's different. Why we might be too early. and How we'll win... and win big.
Herb, Jed, Tim, Fred... I cannot imagine a more right crew to do this with. I'm happy we're on this together and I'm even happier you've not voted me off the island.
Fred Seibert, above, authoring the Master Plan
Jed Simmons explaining something I still don't understand. That happens often.
I shared this theory with many people: my AOL heroes like Danny Krifcher, Tom Hardart, Charlie Fink, and John Borthwick... my friends like Marc Goldberg, Mike Starkenburg, Steve Long, and Mark Buchheim... my family like my dad, wife, and cousin. People were generally supportive, somewhat confused but Charlie, John (both of them) and Danny understood my maddness. When Charlie Fink introduced me to Fred Seibert I knew what I needed to do if I was ever to be in a place to jump on my theory of the colliding industries. I could learn more from Fred in a year as a pawn at MTV Networks than I could any where else. He'd tell me tv if I told him about the Internet (ie: series of tubes).
Flash forward 5 or 6 years... 3 or 4 businesses... several emotional episodes... a near bankruptcy or 2... and the vision of what I saw at the other end of the rainbow has manifested itself:
Next New Networks
Early 'Next New Networks' logo authored by Herb's daughter in art class. Age: 6
Over the coming weeks, I'll be pulling the curtain back on this. Describing: What it is. Who we are. Why it's different. Why we might be too early. and How we'll win... and win big.
Herb, Jed, Tim, Fred... I cannot imagine a more right crew to do this with. I'm happy we're on this together and I'm even happier you've not voted me off the island.
Fred Seibert, above, authoring the Master Plan
Jed Simmons explaining something I still don't understand. That happens often.
