Barry Diller, who has held back on original content development since his involvement in his e-commerce empire IAC, is getting the itch again, and we have been covering it in bits and pieces for the last year or so. Now his company is unveiling some bits of it, exactly a year after hiring Michael Jackson as its content head: first is launch of original videos on majority-owned CollegeHumor.com, with the aim of creating a steady stream of original programming, ultimately one or more clips per week, reports WSJ.
Then, Diller is launching 23/6, a multimedia comedy news site whose name is a spoof on the phrase “24/7.”...this is being done in association with HuffingtonPost. He’s also adding original online-only content to HSN.com. On 23/6, the new site is part of Comedy News Ventures, a new company formed by IAC and The Huffington Post jointly, with former HuffPO GM Sarah Bernard as the president of the new venture....it will launch in March.
23/6 will poke fun at news-making politicians, celebrities and businessmen throughout the day, providing “some of the news, most of the time,” through online video segments as well as written pieces, photos and a blog, the story says.
WSJ also says IAC might be late to the online video game…among other things, IAC has done little to publicize Vimeo.com, a video-sharing site it inherited when it purchased CollegeHumor’s parent company Connected Ventures.