Pop.com Folds Before Launching
The high-budget content site hands out pink slips.
By Ellie Kieskowski
September 6, 2000
Pop.com (http://www.pop.com) announced its formation back in late October of 1999, and the company's original intention was to launch the site this Spring. Spring came and went, but there was no sign of Pop.com on the net. Pop.com has allegedly spent about $7 million searching for an appropriate business plan. Yet, with the deflation of the bubbled net economy, the Hollywood heavies behind Pop.com couldn't come up with a profitable business model. The company was originally founded as a joint venture between DreamWorks SKG and Imagine Entertainment with the funding provided by Vulcan Ventures, Inc., the investment organization of DreamWorks investor Paul G. Allen.
Pop.com's founders included Steven Spielberg and Jeffery Katzenberg of DreamWorks and Imagine's Ron Howard. Last week, Pop.com was speaking with Ifilm Corp (http://www.ifilm.com) about the possibility of the online film site acquiring Pop.com. The talks were unsuccessful, and it was originally announced that the site would simply be scaling back. According to sources at Pop.com, it has now been decided that the site will not launch, and pink slips arrived on the desks of the staff yesterday morning. For the vast majority of the staff, Friday will be their last day. Some of Pop's accumulated content may be showcased on countingdown.com, a site that Pop acquired at the beginning of the year. "The Internet landscape is such that we have higher expectations then technology can allow. We as a people are impatient," stated Phillip Nakov, founder of countingdown.com. Nakov believes that until broadband has reached the masses it will be difficult to compete with traditional mediums. Pop.com's decision not to launch, coupled with Den's demise earlier this year, presents a strong argument that Hollywood types do not understand the state of the Internet entertainment economy. Industry insiders stress that hard work now will create a foundation for a future where broadband is a reality. "To succeed in this game requires tenacity, tremendous understanding of what Web enthusiasts want to do and a programming sensibility that doesn't simply replicate TV, but actually pulls the viewership into the programming," stated Jeanne Meyer, Sr. VP at Pseudo. Bob Cesca, Founder of campchaos.com
(http://www.campchaos.com), adds "The web is all about people like us and you (if you have a site) making creative things and presenting it directly to our viewers, without the constant drag of running it through a large committee filter. That's why the web will outlive TV." It is difficult to say at this stage of the game whether the web will
truly outlive TV, but it is safe to say that the life span of high budget content sites is rather short.
[a while before pseudo.com was in the news:]
More Layoffs and Reorganizations:
EMusic, Pseudo and Beatnik Cut Jobs
Pseudo Shifts Strategy to New Always Live Interactive Content;
Drops Channel Strategy
By Jose Alvear (June 26, 2000)
When web historians look back at the year 2000, they will no doubt call it "The Great Web Shakeout". Not only have we seen the demise of Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), the (almost) demise of APBNews.com and a bunch of other e-commerce companies closing their doors, but there have been lots of companies cutting jobs and reorganizing. The list of job-cutters include LoadTV, ON2.com and Pixelon (which is, well another story completely). The latest to join that list is Emusic.com (http://www.emusic.com), which two weeks ago said it was cutting approximately 20% of jobs and implementing other cost cutting strategies. The company now has 180 employees in a number of offices. To blame was the whole Wall Street dynamic, said Gene Hoffman, president and CEO of EMusic.com. "While the market for downloadable music is poised for tremendous growth, we recognize the need to manage our expenses wisely and aggressively," he said in a statement. All is not lost for Emusic.com since it owns strong properties like Rollingstone.com. "We believe that we are well-positioned for continued growth and leadership as the market for downloadable music continues to mature with the release of more high-profile content and the rapid consumer adoption of MP3 hardware players and superior bandwidth and storage solutions," said Hoffman.
There is talk that Emusic is ready to abandon its 99 cents per song downloadable music strategy, too, and move to other ways to make money. Beatnik too is going through its own shakeout. In a statement, Beatnik (http://www.beatnik.com) said it cut jobs to focus on two key lines: interactive audio solutions and its Mixman product line. Jason Taylor, Director of Public Relations at Beatnik wouldn't say how many jobs were cut or from what divisions but did deny rumors that its recently launched licensing division was closed down. When asked if Beatnik was in financial trouble, Taylor said the company had a "long burn rate" and "plenty of money in the bank." That money came from a $30 million cash infusion it received a few months back after it withdrew its IPO plans. Perhaps the most surprising job cut/restructuring news came from Pseudo (http://www.pseudo.com).
Friday. The net entertainment company cut 58 jobs, or a quarter of the number of total employees. In a statement CEO David Bohrman announced his new strategy of dumping Pseudo's channel-focused site and moving to an always live feed hosted by anchors and jockeys. The new "Pseudo Center" will combine its present 10 channels into one that runs live 12 hours a day. Eventually, it will go to a live 24-hour, 7-day schedule. "Pseudo Center is an ambitious step in our evolution from an Internet site into a full-fledged broadband media company," said David Bohrman. "This centralized approach gives us the ability to dramatically expand our programming at a lower cost." Naturally, comparisons are being made with DEN which crashed after running out of money, but Pseudo says they're not in financial trouble. Pseudo also got cash recently ($14 million) and says this move is merely a new strategy, which required a change in production tactics. By focusing on one live channel, production will be more efficient and less expensive, they claim. Perhaps that so, but that's no consolation to the dozens of .com workers recently let go. The big shakeout continues. Who will be next?
(More on: www.streamingmedia.com)