I moderated a panel today at an event put on by Walden Ventures. The topic: What is the future of digital media? Big question! But I had a great panel: Alex Blum, VP of the Audience Business for AOL; Toby Coppel, SVP of Corporate Development for Yahoo; Larry Kramer, Founder of CBS MarketWatch & President of CBS Digital Media; and Shawn Fanning, founder of SnoCap (and formerly Napster).
The most gratifying thing I heard was when I asked the panel how they value digital media companies when they are considering acquisitions. Expecting to hear an argument about eyeballs vs. revenues, instead the focus was on taking risks with companies that have potential for viral audience growth. And that's not a metric, that's a gut feel. I'm glad to see these guys evaluating companies this way -- it makes things interesting.
Also at this event, several digital media startups pitched to the audience of VCs. I'll probably write soon about SnoCap (aka Shawn Fanning's repentance), and maybe one other after that.
