Google has been put under immense pressure with the recent legal assaults brought upon Youtube for copyright infringement. But copyright is a complex issue that is very likely going to be reviewed over the next few years as publishers learn how to navigate the new terrain. When infringement happened in the past, (DVD / VHS) rip offs would compete with the originals and clearly rights holders lost out. However this has changed somewhat in recent times with the advent of online distribution where in many cases online rip offs are actually helping offline DVD sales.

To get a handle on this, I contacted Chris Everard of Enigma Tv the director of a controversial conspiracy documentary film 'Secret Space', who was once a very outspoken critique of online rip offs but who in recent times has somewhat changed his mind after seeing offline DVD sales actually increase as a result of being ripped off online by Google Video.

When I contacted him for comment he said that the tradeoff was a fair one, as the increased traffic from free online distribution by Google brought with it greater exposure which converts into 'more' paying customers for the DVD.

But what about when a publisher is not happy with having their content distributed on Google Video or Youtube free, sure Google will remove the content on receipt of a legal threat, but when they remove the content they make no apology and simply leave the offending page blank.

Is this enough?

Should Google and Youtube be forced instead to add a link to the contents official home (where legal copies can be purchased) and thereby referring potential customers back to the aggrieved party?

What is most interesting from all this however is that new business models are emerging that suggest that giving away content free can actually bring higher gains through sponsors / advertising and also increase DVD sales, which is in direct contrast to early predictions by rights holders who have long since feared the onset of online rip offs.

Given your new startup a boost with an online pitch can be one of the most powerful marketing tools to get your message across. They can have a viral property about them which a simple press release or announcement will never match.

This is one of the most interesting I have seen recently!

One of the problems I have with reading TC is that its like sitting at a table listening to a bunch of greedy young upstart lawyers gossiping about how much money they will make in the coming year while in the next breath laughing about who was just made redundant, then reaffirming to themselves why they are so smart. But that's lawyers for you!  

Getting editorial coverage to launch your startup can be a tough task with the sheer number of new startups launching every day. So much so that many startups think nothing of paying for a little editorial coverage here and there and most importantly for the link love especially as buying links is a normal part of a seo business these days.

However, companies such as PayPerPost have been vigorously attacked for moving into this space by the likes of Michael Arrington of Techcrunch, claiming that the entire blogging communities reputation would be trashed as readers would no longer 'trust' blogs such as his TC.

TC is one of the larger blogs covering the tech sector, but there are many who aren't so impressed with the TC angle and are now competing for this space. TC enjoyed a wave of early success being one of the first off the block, but this early success brought with it the arrogance of youth and the ignorance of a mountain climber who cant see the drop past the apex.

One of the problems I have with reading TC is that its like sitting at a table listening to a bunch of greedy young upstart lawyers gossiping about how much money they will make in the coming year while in the next breath laughing about who was just made redundant, then reaffirming to themselves why they are so smart. But that's lawyers for you!

The real problem I have though is from the point of view of a startup developer. Success online is not granted by MA as a result of being featured on the likes of TC alone but rather it is earned over the long tail of the internet. The search engines are the authentic makers & breakers of online ventures and the real game in town is SEM and SEO. Being in the right place at the right time is the ONLY way to reach your market.

Sure getting a spike of traffic from a big feature as such will test your servers load capacity but the customer base is probably totally wrong to build any business from such a spike and MA himself has admitted as much here.

Positioning your startup so that it will be found as and when needed is the secret to success and that is what Google has capitalised upon. Googles organic results will feature those who their algorithms claim are the authorities for a given sector. Links are at the heart of these algorithms and as far as Google are concerned gaming is the root of all evil for their business model that requires the losers paying for top advertising positions.

Needless to say if your in the game for the long hall then the natural search results is where you want to be and for this you need links from a broad spectrum of different servers. Having one PR0 (the typical TC link) link will have a negligible effect on these results. Rather depending on the keyword phrases one is competing for you are likely to need 500 or so such links to be well positioned in the organic results and even then it still will take about a year for those links to count.

There are some great new sites that have emerged to feature the launches of startups where you can start your link building / editorial campaign and here I will list a few of the interesting ones that I have found.


Killer StartUps is one of my favorites, this well thought out site allows users to submit their own sites or those that they have found and it is fast becoming one of the main players on the stage although I am not a fan of the user based voting system that has been incorporated because these gadgets are 1) subject to gaming 2) do not reflect the opinions of the authorities.


The Museum of Modern Betas is another of the top launch pads I have found that is doing a remarkable job of indexing and listing all of the startups that are launching daily. Bookmark this site.


Startups in india is a great contender that has some unique features and is focused on networking and launching startups based in India. I very much like the video collection here http://startups.in/exchange/

Great for lawyers to read about industry gossip but generally editorial is restricted to startups that have either been funded with VC or who have just gone bust.


PayPerPost allows startups to get a little paid coverage (links), and maybe more importantly allows some little blogs another source of revenue.


StartUpCrunch offering startups a number of ways to get coverage, free advertising is offered for the price of registration (or a link), and anyone who has a video pitch or demo can make it to the main stage. The CrunchRank evaluation is not subject to gaming and reflects the opinion of the developer who is a tech geek with a track record of developing and running successful technology based startups.

Im sure I have missed many others and will rely on the readers to make up for my ignorance and post comments and further tips for other startups looking for editorial coverage which are posted below:
http://news.ycombinator.com/

http://reddit.com/

Magnum Photos have gone to extraordinary lenghts to develop a rich online media experience for their users and what they have achieved is an example of first rate design coupled with top quality content and all delivered with graceful style.

The flashy web design outfit Group 94 based in Belgium are responsible for creating the Flash slide player that delivers the Magnum content. This was an ambitious project from the start, building a content management system that could deliver video, pictures, and audio over a timeline. IMO this method of delivering content has become probably one of the most interesting uses of Flash to-date.

The Magnum Essay series led by Bjarke Myrthu (Executive Producer) boasts over 30 mini documentaries (Filmations) made with narration, photos and video, covering topics such as the Bolivian revolution to Augusto Pinochet's coup d'Etat. It's a collective monument of achievement and will provide inspiration to others who have their own stories to tell.

Coupling images with narration over a timeline is becoming very fashionable and seems to be a natural extension of the direction the internet is heading. There are a number of companies that have recently released platforms that give users the ability to create their own Filmations and not least there is our own Filmator system.

If you have a little time on your hands I strongly encourage you to check out the Magnum InMotion series and see for yourself what all the fuss is about. You will be amazed.

Please contact bj@magnumphotos.com for information.

    The Pitch

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'Labour Isn't Working' was Charles Saatchi's 1978 slogan for the Conservative party which then gave birth to the Thatcherike. Ironically in 1986 Maggie shutdown the Greater London Council in which some claim was a direct attack on the then leader of the GLC and the now Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

That GLC building sat dormant and redundant until 2003 when Charles had the audacity to reopen it as his very own, brand new gallery. Clearly that was a stroke of good fortune for Charles who would have needed to pick it up on the cheap following the scandal that broke when the brothers were famously kicked out of their own then flagging company 'Saatchi & Saatchi'. (Which was once recognised as the the hardest- hitting agency in Britain.)

It was Saatchi, the man who advertised Thatcher's Conservative party, who then grabbed many of the artworks that so icily described the new Britain that was in large part created by the Thatcher foundation and further compounded by an egotistical and incompetent Labour party which by the way still Isn't Working, and which again ironically proved great inspiration for the likes of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, the now well known Saatchi stars.

Traditional marketing companies have been taken a beating in recent years, stuck in their stagnant business models and largely (if were honest) ignorant of the online media arena. In contrast to the billion dollar sellouts we hear about online sometimes daily, naturally these stories make any business tycoon with an ounce of ambition want a piece of that pie and Charles Saatchi is no exception.

What Charles knows better than any new startup, is that it's all about marketing. No matter how good your product, if it doesn't make it to market on market day then it will sour like a rotten tomato. Somewhat fed up with hearing about all these upstarts on the internet making it big, Charles has decided to launch his very own online debut, a social network for artists. The site supports some of the basic social networking features seen regularly popping up on these fashionable social sites, albeit not one of the better examples but a fair attempt nonetheless.

The startup was enjoying some moderate success with its section for students called Stuart, though that was recently trumped when they came up with the ingenious solution of incorporating a social competition into the then flagging gallery section. News that Saatchi was giving away 1K and a spot on the wall of the former GLC building to the winner was ammunition enough for a swam of wannabe stars to flock to the site, often bringing it down to a grinding halt.

When we looked at the site to review it for this article we happened to notice something rather interesting. Being tech-geeks and sometimes more interested in what is under the bonnet than could be considered healthy, we noticed that the developers (one assumes it wasn't Charles himself) have been using some rather naughty pictures as a test bed for their competition Flash based selection tool. While they are still online you can see for yourself what we found here.

Charles Saatchi is not the king of art, nor the king of business but rather that of reputation. He has the power to make and break careers to influence museums, to establish critical consensus, to change history and that is what we are all interested in.

Right click on the Saatchi Pitch for full effect.

The online media editing arena is teeming with new startups that have their own unique angle on mashing up media. Splashcast had a big launch recently, and Adobe who are holding hands with Photobucket have also entered the game with their own little kiddies toy (poor effort guys - be very ashamed). The Filmator system was the first off the block in this sector and launched in july 2006 and happens to be our favorite (disclaimer:- we developed this product but this has not influenced our opinion in an way!) The interest in this sector is exploding and as such it looks as though soon there will be as many contenders as there already are for the oh so fashionable social networks.

Why all this interest in making and manipulating media? The reason for us was simple, there is war going on over distribution rights for content produced by the majors and as such the battles are clear for all to see. With the likes of Youtube and Google facing increasing pressure to pay for the content they broadcast. We have also been in similar battles with another of our sites Doc-Film-Net where we have faced the similar legal assaults. The irony is that many of those with stories to tell (the subjects) have traditionally been treated like second rate citizens.

For example documentaries made about subjects who have then found they were dropped like rotten tomatoes and were very rarely satisfied with the experience. (I can provide many examples.) So the answer for us was to develop Filmator as a way to solve both these issues. The motives of the others will surely be different from ours but I see it as a leap forward when story tellers can bypass the traditional hurdles and connect directly with their audience. Although I have not tried Castfire yet, it looks like an interesting effort in this sector and worth checking out. However it appears there is no way to register on their site at this time (little oversight there guys)?

What will distinguish the players are the users who adopt these systems. Each with its own take and control on mashup media. With all these opportunities for creators to manipulate and control their media, I wonder if soon a cult will emerge like in the nineties for the DJing scene.

Please contact brian@castfire.com for an information pack.