Convergence Redux

Yahoo! is determined to be more than a portal or search engine (Google) and support an open media destination site (as opposed to AOL). The company took its first step in pronouncing these intentions when it hired former Warner Brothers studio boss Terry Semel as its chairman and CEO. Now it is cementing its strategy with the hire of former ABC Entertainment TV Group chairman Lloyd Braun to lead its Media Group (see Variety article) and set up shop in MGM's old buildings in Santa Monica (see LA Times article).

Already successful with supplemental content for promoting films (Ocean's Twelve) and television shows (Mark Burnett's The Apprentice), Yahoo! is looking to identify a new form of entertainment product that is conducive to the characteristics of the web.

Let's not forget that Yahoo! has failed in previous attempts at porting content online, including "an online business channel called Finance Vision and Yahoo Platinum, which featured video and audio content from TV shows." As pointed out, in a strong analysis from Mercury News (see article), the web is not television or the movies. Richard Wolpert, chief strategy officer at RealNetworks put it best,

``TV still works really, really well, and with TiVo, it works even better,'' he said. ``To simply take a linear entertainment experience and put it online does not do much to enhance the experience. Just taking highlights or samples of an episode and posting it on the Web is not that interesting.''

We will see if Braun manages to follow through on his own sentiment, "The content needs to be in a form that exploits the characteristics (of the Internet)," he said. "You don't need to get what you can get on your big flatscreen television set."

Given Semel's contention, at an industry conference in January, that Yahoo! would follow a path laid out by MTV to become a media network -- aggregate original music video content, draw viewers and then create original programming -- Yahoo! may not exceed the failures of such original web content ventures as Pop.com or Digital Entertainment Network. Working in their favor is the penetration of high speed broadband and Yahoo!'s existing portfolio of media related offerings, including music, news, videos and radio.

Whether this is a return of the euphoria of the late 80s or the beginning of media substitution (as opposed to the long lost convergence) will only become apparent in hindsight, surely to be covered on news.yahoo.com.