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The paidContent 50: The Most Successful Digital Media Companies In The U.S.

Edit Staff — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 06:13:46 +0000

There’s no doubt that people are spending increasing amounts of time with digital media (the web and mobile devices) and decreasing amounts with traditional media (newspapers, magazines and radio). The numbers prove it.

What’s less clear is this: Which media companies are doing the best job of exploiting that shift? Welcome to the paidContent 50, our inaugural list of the 50 most-successful digital media companies in the U.S. (Don’t be fooled: There are 50 companies on the list, even though it ends at No. 43. We had one three-way tie and five two-way ties).

Our list is a ranking based on digital sales, which, in our minds, is a fair indicator of digital success. Where digital sales figures were publicly available, we used them; in cases where they weren’t, we estimated them, using a variety of sources, including comments executives have made to the press, research reports, and conversations with industry analysts. We also reached out directly to dozens of companies that don’t report digital sales, although most — including major media conglomerates that only a few years ago were trumpeting their digital revenue figures — declined to provide that information to us. Some insisted the digital data was too tied into other parts of the business to break out.

We’re the first to admit that the list contains a fair amount of guesswork — informed guesswork but guesswork nonetheless. It is meant to help kick off a deeper conversation about digital success.

Some high-level takeaways from our ranking: Businesses that generate digital revenue by selling ads dominate our list; companies that make most of their money selling online content or subscriptions took only 13 of the 50 spots. And while many traditional media companies may be struggling to grow their overall sales, they are generating significant revenue online. Twenty-one companies on our list have a substantial presence in non-online media, such as newspapers, phone books or TV. Finally, Google is — by far — the most successful digital media company in the U.S. Its revenue is more than three times that of the number two company on the paidContent 50.

For the purposes of this list, we defined a digital media company as a business that is making money directly from the sale of online content or online advertising. So we didn’t include companies like content delivery networks, domain-name registration businesses, or advertising agencies. Even with companies like Apple or Amazon–both of which are on our list–we didn’t include revenue from the sales of devices like the iPad or Kindle. And in creating the paidContent 50, we decided to focus on consumer-facing firms, so you won’t find any business-to-business content companies here.

This is an iterative list, so we welcome your thoughts about the analysis of individual companies (see the comment box after each of the company profiles) or on the idea of the list itself.

Click “first company” below to start scrolling through the companies on our list, or see the full list here. For more about our methodology, go here.

–
Joseph Tartakoff

Go to page 2 (of 50) on paidContent .

Taking The Tablet: 15 Ways Publishers Are Re-Imagining The Magazine

Edit Staff — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:00:28 +0000

Magazine publishers were already beginning to imagine how tablet devices might reboot their fortunes long before the April 3 retail date for Apple’s iPad.

Such gadgets promise a new wave of tablet magazines. But it’s early days – our trawl of 15 examples includes many that are merely concepts – so consider them preferred bets, from show-off publishers, on what the magazine might become.

While each takes advantage of the touch screen to, at the least, replicate the tactile experience of flicking through a magazine, visions for the digital mag vary somewhat, coalescing around five key trends…

Print shovelware: Those that merely recreate the page-turning experience on the digital screen.

Interactive editions: They’re recognisably a magazine, but navigation and animation really take advantage of what is essentially a screen.

Motion-heavy mags: Co-produced by film makers, they’re as much a video narrative as a magazine.

Web shells: Lazy apps that merely funnel through a publication’s existing website.

Live info: Divorced from monthly print cycle, an article can take advantage of the real-time web.

What’s clear is that, built on a tablet that can run apps, a magazine can be as radical as its individual software platform affords. If no standard for interaction and navigation emerges, it’s possible that every other digital magazine will work differently.

But re-envisioning the magazine likely won’t be cheap. While some of the fancier interactive ideas can be commissioned at an acceptable one-off cost, sustaining such production values on a monthly basis would likely command a bigger budget – many of these concepts will require a whole new production skillset.

And publishers beware: consumers are interested in buying iPad more for browsing the web than for either reading magazines or downloading apps, according to comScore.

Read on to find out who’s doing whatâ€¦

Go to page 2 (of 16) on paidContent .

Fresh Faces In Tech: 10 Kid Entrepreneurs To Watch

Edit Staff — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:36:45 +0000

Bill Gates was 19 when he came up with the idea for Microsoft. Michael Dell was the same age when he started selling computers out of his dorm room. Who are the teens of today that are trying to hatch the big tech and media ideas of tomorrow? We talked with venture capitalists, tech executives, college professors and entrepreneurs to find out.

In looking at the next generation of would-be Bill Gateses and Steve Jobses, one thing quickly becomes clear: how much the world has changed for tech innovators. First of all, new distribution platforms are popping up all the time. If previous generations of tech entrepreneurs were all about the computer, the current crop of can draw on everything from mobile phones to social networks to user-generated sites for business ideas.

At the same time, many of the other steepest barriers to entry have fallen: To get an idea off the ground, you no longer need to gain the approval of a paranoid software giant (thanks to the open-source movement), or get 3 million people to sign up for your offering, or land a big round of funding. More than ever, you really just need a good idea.

The point of this list isn’t to tell you that Mark Zuckerberg (24) is headed for greatness or that David Karp (24) and Matt Mullenweg (23) really seem to be onto something with, respectively, Tumblr and WordPress.

There’s no shortage of well-known 20-somethings running very successful businesses. Rather, we were interested in highlighting earlier-stage businesses and entrepreneurs. Below are 10 people –one only 15 years old and none yet of legal drinking age — who have created companies that in some cases are already bringing in millions of dollars in revenues. We included one green-tech entrepreneur in our list because that is such a hot area these days.

Writing on his blog BuzzMachine, Jeff Jarvis-whose son, Jake, is number six on our list-says the current crop of teen-age entrepreneurs is anything but a group of text-addled slackers: “They take the tools available and make things, whether that’s a blog or a video or a web page or an application. The more tools there are, the more things they’ll make,” he says. “This is the creation generation.”

We’ve ranked the entrepreneurs on this list on a variety of factors. Because they all run very small private companies, reliable financial data is often scarce. In some cases, though, the companies, their funders or other sources have supplied that information; where they haven’t, we have tried to estimate it based on a rough calculation. We have also considered other, non-financial factors — the size of the potential market for their ideas and the uniqueness of their concepts. Given the rapid pace at which technology changes, it won’t take long to find out whether any breakout stars will emerge from this group.
–Peter Newcomb

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10 Songs That Rocked The Digital Music World

Edit Staff — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:19:05 +0000

Music is more popular than it’s ever been, but the models for distributing and promoting it have changed radically. Fans are getting huge amounts of music directly from the web (legally and illegally), artists are becoming stars without ever having to deal with the labels, and entirely new platforms, from ringtones to videogames, are helping to turn songs into hits.

Below, we chart this evolution through actual songs. Each of the following 10 tunes captures a key chapter in the rise of digital music, from the song that sold the most ringtones, to a cut from the first record to be released exclusively online, to an early and influential “mashup.” Meanwhile, as the digital revolution marches on, there will continue to be new songs that shape the future of the business. And maybe even a few old songs-this could be the year that the Beatles finally get online.

—Peter Newcomb

Go to page 2 (of 14) on paidContent .

Econoclast10

Edit Staff — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:02:18 +0000

From FunnyOrDie to Tila Tequila, celebrities are stepping up their online game. In recognition of these efforts, we present our EconCeleb Econoclast10.

This top 10 list reflects the best of what the celebrities are bringing to us not on camera, but online. Whether they’re blogging, entertaining, investing or, well, updating their MySpace profiles, celebrities are finding new ways to reach their fans in the digital space.

Go to page 2 (of 11) on paidContent .