Facebook Is Finally Ready To Become A Media Company

Facebook beat estimates with its latest earnings but announced that ad revenues would likely slow in 2017 as the digital ad market feels the pinch of advertiser budgets lagging the shift in user behaviour. Facebook’s stock fell by 7% but it already has Plan B in motion: to become a media company. Facebook delayed this move as long as it possibly could, showing little enthusiasm for getting bogged down with content licenses while it was able to drive audience growth and engagement by piggy backing other people’s content. That strategy has run its course. Facebook is now about to start looking and behaving much more like a media company, but in doing so it will rewrite the rule book on what a media company is.

The Socially Integrated Web

Back in 2011 I published a report ‘The Socially Integrated Web: Facebook’s Content Strategy and the Battle of the Ecosystems’. You can still download the report for free here. In it I argued that Facebook was starting out on a path to become a media company, but not the sort of media company anyone would recognise:

Change is afoot in the Internet.  Facebook’s new Socially Integrated Web strategy is set to make Facebook one of the most important conduits on the web. It is pushing itself further out into content experiences in the outside web while simultaneously pulling more of them into Facebook itself. Facebook is establishing itself as a universal content dashboard – a 21st century cable company for the Internet, a 21^st century portal – establishing its own content ecosystem to compete with the likes of Apple and Amazon. While traditional ecosystems are defined by hardware and paid services, Facebook’s is defined by data and user experience.

Now with ad revenues set to slow, Facebook is flicking the switch on phase 2 of this strategy. Think of it as the Socially Integrated Web 2.0.

Wall Street Doesn’t Like Mature Growth Stories In Tech

As Apple, Pandora and others have found to their cost, Wall Street likes its tech stocks to be dynamic growth stories. It doesn’t like mature growth stories – that’s what traditional company stocks are for. So what can a tech company with a mature customer base do? The answer is to switch on new user monetization strategy, with content and services the lynchpin. Apple’s new supplemental investor materials outlining iOS users’ services spend is a case in point. Monetizing audiences is the new black. This is the game Facebook is now starting to play.

How Facebook Will Become A Next Gen Media Company

Moving from curating to licensing is a subtle but crucial shift in Facebook’s role as a content distribution platform. Here are the pieces that Facebook will stitch together as it begins its transition towards become a next generation media company:

• Games: In August Facebook announced its gaming platform Facebook Gameroom, a Steam for casual games. It followed that with the announcement it will bring Instant Games to Messenger – an extension of its messaging bot strategy. Games is a logical place for Facebook to start carving out its media company role as it has become the default home of casual PC gaming. It also wants to own a slice of the hugely lucrative mobile gaming market.
• Filters: Snapchat and Line have created global marketplaces for stickers and filters. Facebook is set to follow suit and is now experimenting with Snapchat-like filters. Filters may not look like media assets in the traditional sense, but the whole point about next generation media businesses is that they contain next generation content assets. Filters are an early indication of how the definition of content will change over the next decade and Facebook now has a horse in that race.
• Video: Despite the embarrassment of having over reported some of its video metrics, Facebook has quickly become a major player in the online video space, accounting for 29% of short form video views. The next step for Facebook is to start building a discovery and curation layer. When it does, expect video consumption to boom. This will be a major step towards its media company future. It will however have to build a lot of tech for rights holders and content creators. Right now, its aversion of getting tied up with policing rights means that many rights holders don’t even post content there. YouTube has a massive head start with its highly sophisticated Content ID stack. Facebook will need to follow YouTube’s lead.
• Live Stream: Facebook has been doubling down on its live streaming, expanding its focus from user and celeb streams towards more traditional media content such as Steven Colbert’s Showtime Monologue, partnering with 50 media outlets for presidential election coverage, and eSports. eSports could be as lucrative as traditional sports within the next 10 years and the shift has already begun – Twitch accounted for more streaming video bandwidth than the Olympics.
• Next generation TV operator: One of the most disruptive moves Facebook can make, at least from the perspective of traditional media, is to stitch together its video assets and combine them with video subscription apps like Netflix and TV channel apps like iPlayer and HBO Go to create an all-in-one video destination straddling, UGC, short form, live streaming and TV content. The rise of video apps has created a bewilderingly fragmented video landscape. Facebook can stitch it all together to become a next generation TV operator. It will face direct competition from Apple, Amazon and Alphabet if/when it does.
• Editorial: Facebook took a lot of flak for its decision to censor, on grounds of nudity, a famous Vietnam photo showing the effects of a napalm attack on Vietnamese children. The photo had been posted by Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten and its editor-in-chief Espen Egil Hansen wrote “Editors cannot live with you, Mark, as a master editor”. Facebook eventually bowed to public pressure and reinstated the photo. While Facebook may have been wrong to censor the photo it revealed that Facebook is already a ‘master editor’ whether Facebook or traditional media like it or not. Facebook hosts such a vast amount of content that the master editor role is inescapable. Aftenposten might have editorial credibility but what about a white supremacist publication? Facebook is already an editor in chief, in short it is already a media company.
• Music: Facebook’s recent ad for a music licensing executive got music business types all excited. But music is the content vertical Facebook probably has least to gain from switching from host to licensed service. Streaming music is a notoriously difficult business to make money in (Spotify’s gross operating margin is around 17%). Facebook needs to grow margin, not just revenue, and with all its other content options it doesn’t make sense for Facebook to loss lead with an AYCE music service when it can get a bigger return on that investment elsewhere. IF Facebook does do something in music either expect it to be a more radio-like experience for its mainstream audiences (Pandora had a gross operating margin of around 40% in 2015) or – and this is more likely – something for younger users that has music at its core but that is not a streaming service. Think something along the lines of lip synching app Musical.ly.

Facebook is a past master at business model transformation. Its co-opting of younger audience focussed messaging platforms in the face of ageing social network audiences was a best-in-class example of a company disrupting itself before someone else did. Now Facebook is set to make another major change in its strategy before it finds its core business disrupted. Media companies beware, there’s a new player in town and its betting big, real big.

Music’s Role In Digital Content Is Small And Shrinking

This week I delivered a keynote at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on the future of media. I focused on three key areas of digital content:

• Digital Music
• Online Video
• Mobile Apps

Pulling together these three different strands really shone a light on where music sits in the broader digital economy.  One of the key themes I explored was how the streaming music business relies on pretty much the same model as mobile games like Clash Of Clans, i.e. relying on a tiny share of the total audience to pay. The big difference is that the annual ARPU of a King customer is $290.41 while for Universal Music the annual ARPU of a streaming music subscriber is $29.77.  Universal Music rightly got a lot of attention recently for becoming the first billion Dollar streaming music company. Universal has managed to make streaming revenue scale. However streaming remains a revenue stream that is plagued by free. Only 10% of the total streaming audience (i.e. including YouTube and Soundcloud) is paid, and though this small group generates 71% of Universal’s streaming revenue, the blended ARPU is just $4.15. That’s $4.15 for the entire year of 2015, not per month. You can see my full analysis of how free-to-paid conversion ratios and ARPU compare across big media companies here.

But perhaps most revealing is the relative scale of music compared to everything else. As the graphic below reveals, digital music (at retail values) will be just 10% of digital content revenue by 2020, down from 16% in 2015. So digital music is both small and losing market share. Online video, which is at an earlier stage of its development, is already bigger (at retail value) than the entire recorded music business (at trade value), while mobile app revenue is double that of online video.

Yet music continually punches above its weight. Its impact on culture and emotions far outweighs that of apps (for now at least) and music artists still have far more dedicated fan bases than actors generally do (again, for now at least). Music’s impact is far beyond its revenue, even in business terms. Just look at all the brands, telcos and device companies that fall over themselves to be associated with music.

Nonetheless, the reality that must be accepted is that sooner or later, recorded music’s diminished revenue footprint is going to catch up with it. Major record labels enjoy a privileged position, because rights are so concentrated in music they each have an effective monopoly power because each of them have the power of veto if they say no. (You try launching a mainstream music service without one of the majors). This can sometimes lead to hubris and over confidence. In video and apps, rights are far more fragmented and consequently no single rights owner has market shaping power. (As an aside it is worth asking whether rights concentration is contributing to digital music losing pace with the digital content economy.) The clear risk is that music rights holders eventually overplay their hand, demanding too much from partners with too little flexibility. I have been hearing for some time from a number of ‘partner’ companies that they are beginning to question whether music is worth the hassle. Meanwhile SVOD services and YouTubers are waiting eagerly in the wings…

Another part of the equation is that recorded music revenue only paints a small part of the global music industry picture (i.e. also including publishing, live and merch). In fact, recorded music has declined from being 60% of all music industry revenue in 2000 to around 30% today.  Most artist managers now view recorded music primarily as a marketing platform to drive live revenue. Unfortunately record labels aren’t in a position to think that way.

Whatever perspective you view this from though, one thing is clear, music’s role in the global digital content marketplace is small and shrinking.

Spotify Just Parked Its Tanks On YouTube’s Lawn

Today’s Spotify announcement was always going to be about Daniel Ek attempting to regain control of the streaming narrative in advance of Apple’s grand entry in a couple of weeks.  But if you were expecting this to be the launch of a bunch of new music features then you were in for a little bit of a shock.  Though there were some new music features outlined (such as swipe to listen, behaviour-learning programming and fitness features) the core of this event was positioning Spotify’s transition from a pure play music service into an entertainment destination with video taking centre stage.  YouTube has been competing (on uneven terms) with Spotify for years as a music service.  Now Spotify is fighting back by going after YouTube’s heartland.

Moving Beyond The Soundtrack

Spotify’s hook line for the event was ‘Soundtracking Your Day’ but in actual fact Spotify want to do much more than that (after all that’s what they already do), now they want to also be a visual part of your day too.  Spotify announced a host of new video partners including native online video producers, next gen video creators like Vice News and traditional brands like Comedy Central.  Spotify is creating a catalogue of video shorts that are designed to fit into your day.  This is unashamedly YouTube, Vessel and Buzz Feed territory.

Lessening The Music Dependence

While music consumption is booming (25 billion hours of music has been streamed on Spotify so far) Ek and co are spreading their bets.  The last 6 months have been tough for Spotify with the major labels casting doubt on its freemium model due to thinly veiled pressure from Apple.  Spotify will quite rightly feel aggrieved with this shift in attitude considering the fact it now accounts for half of global streaming revenue and is doing a better job of driving subscription uptake than anyone has ever come close to doing.  Running a music service can be a high effort, low reward and frustrating experience at times.  So Spotify can be forgiven for wanting to weaken its utter dependence on the whims of a few big labels.

Reversing Into YouTube Territory

Reversing into YouTube and Buzz Feed’s front lawns though will be easier said than done though.  The nature of the mobile consumption landscape is a diverse mix of content capsules, whether they be apps, mobile bookmarks or notification feeds.  Users have learned to consume mobile content in bite-sized chunks.  Facebook has done what it can to re-aggregate content via timeline but has found that asset more useful for sorting users personal content and shared content snippets.  Messaging platforms are now looking like the place where content audiences are best aggregated.  In fact the history of content audience aggregation can be summarised as:

1 – websites

2 – portals (e.g. Yahoo, AOL)

3 – social networks

4 – messaging platforms

Which is why Facebook is disrupting itself with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, it knows where things are heading.  This is the environment in which Spotify will be competing, with Snapchat and Line as much as it is with YouTube and Vice.  In Spotify’s favour is the fact that many of the digital first content destinations, Buzz Feed especially, are entirely willing to envisage a future in which their content could exist entirely on third party platforms.

Return Of The Portal?

In a lot of ways Spotify’s video mini-pivot feels like a back-to-the-future spin on the 20th century portal model but there is clearly an opportunity to re-aggregate our fragmented digital entertainment lives.  Whether Spotify can do that or not is another question and even if it can, it will be a long-term play rather than some short term hit.  Ek might have said he wants to ‘soundtrack our day’ but his product strategy actions show us that he feels Spotify has outgrown being the soundtrack alone.

Zoe Keating’s Experience Shows Us Why YouTube’ Attitudes To Its Creators Must Change

It is easy to think of the internet as a mature medium, especially for those who were born into the internet era. However we are still at the earliest of stages. We are where radio was in the 1930’s and where TV was in the 1950’s: the first signs of the future markets are in place but the real maturation is yet to come. The greats of those early days, the Marconis and the RCAs, are now long gone but at the time they looked like they would rule forever. A similar long view should be taken to the internet. The dominant powers of the web (YouTube, Google search, Amazon, Facebook) may appear to have unassailable market leads but their time will come. Using more recent history, there was a time when AOL and MySpace looked irreplaceable. So why does all this matter to YouTube? The problem with absolute power is that it corrupts absolutely. YouTube, like those other dominant powers, has fallen victim to hubris. It is behaving like the unregulated de facto monopoly that it is. And in doing so it is taking its creators for granted. Right now that is bad for creators. Soon it may be bad for YouTube too. It Is Time For YouTube To Reassess It s Relationship With Content Creators Online video is truly coming of age. YouTube was one of the ice breakers and remains one the very biggest web destinations but the world is changing. YouTube has changed too of course, migrating skate boarding dogs, through music video to fostering a generation of YouTube stars like PewDiePie, Zoella and Smosh. But just as YouTube had to reinvent itself in the wake of the mid form revolution driven by Hulu et al so the time has come for another reinvention, but this one requires a change in business practices rather than product innovation. Most crucially YouTube needs to reassess its relationships with content creators and owners. When the first YouTube stars started to rise to prominence YouTube was almost positioned as a benefactor, giving the gift of a platform for these people to become stars. But now, a few years on, with millions of subscribers each, these stars are beginning to understand their real potential. In just the same way that a traditional TV star does not feel a debt of gratitude or a commitment to life long servitude to the TV channel that broke him or her, so YouTube stars are now beginning to reassess their options. The online video landscape though is dramatically less competitive than the TV landscape so options are limited. But where there is demand for change and no monopoly of supply of content, change will come. This is the context into which new video service Vessel has launched, offering YouTube stars cold hard cash payments and significantly bigger revenue shares, in return for giving just a few days of exclusivity. Be sure that few days window will change, but for now it is a low risk, high gain option for YouTube stars. Expect plenty more to follow Vessel’s lead. YouTube Is Abusing Its Position Of Absolute Power That should be where the story ends, well starts. But because the dominant internet companies are not subject to the same level of regulation as traditional companies they are able to abuse their power in order to try to maintain their strangle hold. YouTube found itself subject to extensive ire when it tried to foist a hugely restrictive contract on indie labels for its then forthcoming YouTube Music Key service. The indie sector was eventually able, via its licensing arm Merlin, to secure more favourable terms, but the same contract remains on the table for individual creators. Zoe Keating, an artist who sets the gold standard for DIY artists, has been a vocal advocate for YouTube channels as a revenue source. But now YouTube is trying to strong-arm her into signing what looks pretty much like that same original Music Key contract. Their demands include an effective Most Favoured Nation clause whereby anytime she uploads any music to the web she must upload it also to YouTube at exactly the same time. The contract also states a five year period and that failure to sign the contract will result in YouTube blocking both her channel and Keating’s ability (via Content ID) to get revenue from her own music uploaded without permission by others. The implications are:

• Music must always be available free on YouTube first on the web
• Artists must take a 5 year bet on streaming, even though there are massive doubts about its sustainability for artists

But it is the Content ID clause that is most nefarious. Content ID is not an added value service YouTube provides to content owners, it is the obligation of a responsible partner designed to help content creators protect their intellectual property. YouTube implemented Content ID in response to rights owners, labels in particular, who were unhappy about their content being uploaded by users without their permission. YouTube’s willingness to use Content ID as a contractual lever betrays a blatant disregard for copyright. Asymmetrical Conflict Zoe Keating is a rare talent and also a rare voice. She is willing to expose her entire digital music commercial life in a way very few artists are willing to. She is standing up to YouTube in a David and Goliath like manner but the deck is stacked against her because YouTube is able to abuse its de facto monopolistic position without any fear of regulatory intervention. If they get their way with independent music creators, expect them to take the exact same approach to other independent video creators in a bid to neuter the threat from disruptive new entrants like Vessel.  Rather than simply try to future proof itself against the emerging competition YouTube should focus on trying to be the best possible place for its creators to be to build prosperous careers. Instead it is trying to lock them in like prison inmates. Ultimately though this sort of action from YouTube reveals strategic hubris, arrogance and complacency. All of which are classic signs of an incumbent company teetering on the brink of disruption. As the Enron experience showed us, no company is too big to fail. And as my former colleague Michael Gartenberg used to say ‘cemeteries are full of irreplaceable people’.