mjones.la

1.30 am, just arrived from JFK

I was fortunate enough to grab time with Ron/Randy a few weeks back for dinner, and a few followup meetings with Ron recently. Although I dont believe we have broadcast a good strategy down to the entire team, there is a plan I see coming into focus - and it is moving to a platform theory which I believe in. I have been happy in that we are talking less about competing with Yahoo and more about competing with Google.

I continue to get a stomach cramp when I talk and think about Google owning our search index - and \ being the "best" at monetizing search traffic. That paired up with Doubleclick - I fear the day that using them for monetization will be better than having in house sales people - we are all racing to that same goal.

Randy made a nice comparison between the migration of primary ad dollars within the initial TV networks to cable channels (which evidentially is now over 50% split between cable ad revenue and network) - and the internet's diversification from primary portals to the "billions" of micro sites. This of course poses a very real problem for large networks focusing on their primary internal assets.

Derek Boggs was kind enough to point out that over 30% roughly of Googles revenue came from out of network revenue in Q207 - where as in Q105 it was nearly 50%. Thus good products work : ) I was interested in seeing what it was prior to 05 considering so much of their initial traction was through 3rd party deals. I love the concept of better monetization on 3rd party distribution deals - then leveraging the same engine to drive your own properties up. In theory the reduction of this reliance on 3rd party network traffic creates less venerability for Google over time.

I wonder if at its heart Google is an ad network - of which they have properties/apps that are "publishers on the network" - or if they are a application company that solved monetization then distributed the tools to other properties?

Overall I think the path is becoming more clear at AOL. I believe there needs to be better strategic leadership displayed at the top and a bit more of love pushed onto the team. In general I see 5 pillars of technology that are core products that need to be perfected within AOL to truly establish the platform for a long term growth. I wonder if from a TW perspective if they are truly re-investing into infrastructure for the long term - or if we are all in the short game.. Eitherway - I think I will be back east a bit more frequently.