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The rumors were true: CBS bought online video show Wallstrip this week. Investor Fred Wilson tells the nine-month success story.
Along the way Howard, Adam, Jeff, Lindsay, and a few other brave souls they hired figured out a bunch of stuff that is key to a successful web video show. Like how to get the show on every video service quickly and easily. How to tag and promote the show on each and every service so it actually gets seen. How to measure and track all the views. How to reconcile all the different measurements you get. How to get subscribers in iTunes, FeedBurner, and YouTube. How to make a web site that communicates what the show is quickly and easily. How to do advertising in a way that doesn’t get in the way of the viewer. How to get the show indexed by ticker in the major finance portals. And most of all, how to keep it short, fun, and funny… Not many people have figured all that out. But if you don’t know how to do all that stuff, you can’t build a business in web video.
Congratulations to Wallstrip on their multi-million-dollar payday. Unlike its competitors, CBS understands the value of online video superdistribution.
Wallstrip creator Howard Lindzon said CBS bought the show in part because of its “web 2.0″ attitude towards widely syndicating and distributing its video. “Quincy wants to be everywhere,” he said, meaning Quincy Smith, CBS’ dealmaker and the initiator of the Wallstrip purchase.
Expect Wallstrip to get even bigger under their clueful corporate parent.
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Congratulations on your big payday, Howard. You guys make Wall Street fun. :)
thanks – i think you are right.