After Hulu, Vevo and “Pulu,” What Next? Some “Ideas”

As the Hulu Complex spreads to the wider reaches of our content industry, it would be interesting to figure out what could come next. Some have already been launched (Vevo), others announced (“Pulu“, the Time Inc-Conde-Nast-Hearst-News-Corp-*Meredith* mag/publishing JV) and others are in the still-in-the-works stage (news industry consortium led by *News Corp.*). Some other more B2B ventures may get less ink, and have been around to service various parts of the industry for awhile, with cable industry targeted-ad JV Canoe Ventures (my guess it is may never launch properly) as an example.

After a history of failures (Pressplay, Musicnet, New Century Network and others), Hulu provided the guidelines for others to follow. The structure of such JVs is becoming something of a template, for logistical, operational and regulatory reasons: Usually one big media company has to champion the venture, and the CEO of that company personally has to rope in other rival CEOs to commit. Then spin out a separate startup company, to attract the entrepreneurial talent to run the venture, unencumbered by legacy and red tape. Get an outside financial investor to put up money (possibly a 10-percent stake), to do away with some regulatory/monopoly concerns, among other reasons. Get a four-letter domain name (seems minor but important to develop a consumer brand). Somewhere in between, they leak it to press, preferably keeping it in the family, so that the momentum and excitement builds.

What other possibly JVs are left to be done? Some “inspired” ideas from me:

– A joint search engine: Well, Bing’s too small for now to compete against Google (NSDQ: GOOG), the Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) deal notwithstanding. Maybe the rest of the world, led by the World Association of Newspapers, can launch a search engine, sometime in the next decade. For added flavor, involve France. Call it something like…”Snap.” Why the heck not, if you can get Comcast-NBCU in it. Let’s bring it back.
– A joint device to compete against the iPhone-iPod hegemony: Yeah, let Stringer lead it. He’s funny, if nothing else. Meanwhile, he’ll talk about an online service to go along with it for the next 20 years. Call it “Trig”. Wait, that’s already been taken by a music social net. Nevermind, just call it “Sony.”
– Save-MTV consortium: Retro blast to Vevo. Get Metallica to invest in it. Also, fold MySpace Music into it and let Jason Hirschhorn and rest of former-MTV-team-at-MySpace run it. Bring the MTVi moniker back for it.
– The Anti-Skype consortium: another obvious one. All the telcos will jump at this one. The outside investor is even more obvious: Index Ventures. I even have a guy who can run it. His name is Mike Volpi. Call it “Joost.” It is available, or will be soon.
– Anti-Facebook consortium: This one’s easy. Everyone not-Facebook will contribute, just make sure not a single line of MySpace codebase is in the JV.
– Anti-Bloomberg consortium: Now that Bloomberg has BusinessWeek, let the remaining combo of Forbes, Fortune and Fast Company join together. Get Dennis Kneale to head it. Call it…”Flub.”
– Silicon Valley news consortium: There isn’t enough competition to the 800-pound gorilla called Techcrunch. Plus, who will cover the rest of the crappy startups that TC ignores? Tons of contenders to run it, and for added measure, get CNET to invest in it. Then everyone will have an added reason to ignore it. Call it “Argh.”
– Anti-Nikki Finke consortium: Won’t that be fun. The line of contributors to this consortium would run from Nikki’s house to Sharon Waxman’s office in Santa Monica, and on the way, pass through Wilshire and Sunset, making stops at the LAT, Variety and THR. Call it, just to make Nikki explode, “Toldja.”
– The Credit-Where-Credit-Is-Due venture: Why, headed by me, of course. Self explanatory to followers of my Twitter feed. I am open to crowd-sourcing the name, and am giving full credit, for due measure.

Any more ideas?