Video: Richard Rosenblatt, CEO Of Demand Media, On Bradford’s Hiring

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Video: Richard Rosenblatt, CEO Of Demand Media, On Bradford’s Hiring

As luck would have it, I was on my way to meet with Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt and key members of his team at the company’s Austin offices when the rumors surfaced about Joanne Bradford leaving Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) for the start-up. Yahoo confirmed it for us, and during my interview with Rosenblatt, he elaborated on the decision to make Bradford Demand’s first chief revenue officer, citing her experience with platform sales, external partners and branded ad sales. The offices are in the former Austin Opera House, Willie Nelson’s old digs, an address Demand acquired along with Austin online publishing tools start-up Pluck two years ago for about $67 million. That was the last acquisition for Demand, which has raised $355 million. Any other acquisitions in sight? We talked about that, Bradford’s hiring, video expansion, Demand’s massive flow of original content, and more during the interview embedded below.

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Staci D. Kramer

@sdkstl Mar 15, 2010 9:08 PM ET

Posted In: Media & Publishing, demand media, richard rosenblatt

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mocorocker

I agree with the view that the ringtone industry still has a lot of potential. But if I may make (very respectfully) one comment/question to Len on NAKKO: Free content is, well, not a new concept for sure . Is your 'business model' based on advertising? If so, I have one basic question, how many impressions and at what CPM do you need to sell to make the equivalent of ONE download sold at $1.99 (minus a - say 40 % carrier fee)? Quite a lot, isn't it? More than you will ever get from even your most frequent user.

Sure, let's give for free what people are willing to pay for.

MR

Len Clabbers

The outcome of this research can hardly be a surprise to anyone with some knowledge of the mobile industry.
My personal opinion.
Since the rather destructive and expensive (yet high margin) subscription model entered the mobile market, it was nothing more than a matter of time untill too many consumers with a bad user experience would turn there backs on ringtone providers. You can fool some people sometime, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

For sure the growing market share of mp3 phones have speed up the process. But the process has been in motion for a while now. And with the process I mean the marketing tactics to "over promise", "over charge" and "under deliver", leading to disillusioned consumers who never buy a ringtone again.

Nevertheless the ringtone industry remains a large industry with a lot of potential. If only those who have to power to change are open to look for other fair ways to let consumers enjoy ringtones on their mobile phones.

Len

note: my comment is nothing more (nor less) than a personal view on the situation in the industry.
To judge my comment, I do want you to know that I am currently working for NAKKO a online service that offers free mobile content.