Me: I won’t be on camera, right? Meg: No! Just your feet. At the Emmy’s this year, in the sexiest Louboutins ever.
DailyPatricia.com is an online documentary project that follows serial entrepreneur Patricia Handschiegel. Patricia is a serial media and entertainment entrepreneur who founded a pioneering social media site in 2004, which she sold in 2007. She is currently the CEO of 9, a transmedia production and consulting company that builds and consults on franchise projects for traditional and digital media, entertainment and internet business. Her startups and business insight has been heard at events including South by Southwest, the Writer's Guild of America, Blogher, Women 2.0, Girls in Tech, and in mainstream business media/blogs including Mashable, Paid Content, TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, TV Week, and others. As founder of Stylediary, her fashion advice has appeared in more than 250 media outlets. She's the co-creator of the popular Huffington Post series The New Power Girls and Thenewpowergirls.com blog, which covers news and profiles of women startups and existing companies in multiple markets. Prior to entrepreneurship, Patricia worked in internet telecom at the engineering level and all facets of consumer sites. She's a social entrepreneur using business for change in empowerment, the elderly and childrens causes. Contact her at patricia@whatis9.com
November 7, 2009
Here's What Happens When Someone Takes The Right Approach Online
The New York Times had a big, glowing article this week about the viability and success of the virtual goods market. The article went into a half dozen or so cases of successful virtual goods companies who are making great money online. In case you’re not sure what a virtual good is, it’s something you can buy and play with or send to someone else via the web — digital birthday cakes you can send to your Facebook friends, etc. It’s not a new or novel concept but as internet usage and consumer web savviness increases, it has created a market for it.
What’s interesting is that most people will think the success of this category is about virtual goods or the category itself. They’ll believe there’s some kind of magic element to the market, that somehow virtual goods has created some new way of making money online, etc. But, it’s really not a magic bullet at all. The virtual goods category could have failed miserably just as easily as music and content have (and continues to do). What set it apart? The right approach. Virtual goods companies didn’t assume that consumers wouldn’t pay and therefore automatically offer their wares for free. They didn’t fall into the trap of believing that you’ve got to give something for free to “entice” users to pay for something else, or create things that don’t have a market (which is really rampant on the web). Nope, all they did was create something of value to users, and charge for it — right out of the gate and right away. And surprise, surprise — people will pay. Uncanny? Not at all. This is what happens when you take the right approach to the internet platform.
The next time you hear some blogger or journalist say “people won’t pay for things online,” remember this article. Then, ignore them.
November 4, 2009
How Very Fascinating
A multiplatform market that is in a state of disruption like the one we are in right now is always so interesting to watch. Today, eBay became a competitor to the internet publishing market in a sense with the launch of its own magazine. The New York Times article about the news said the company hired real print journalists, something that digital companies seem to do a lot. I can understand the value of someone who knows how to run a publishing operation like a good print editor but if I were eBay I would have made some specific, strategic hires from the digital side instead. A paid content syndication scenario with the top ten fashion bloggers would have given as much if not more cache to digital audiences, baked in audience and authority plus a solid viral online reach. Bloggers like this are hustlers — they’re out evangelizing their work, and if you hire them, your work too. Not that it matters. The user interface on the site is terrible. But it’s always interesting to watch a companies cross lines and blur over platforms, like a major internet company moving into digital publishing.
A big reason why eBay slipped in the fashion category were fakes and frauds, and also that its core audience isn’t niche and boutique enough for fashion people to sell a lot of things. It’s very hard to sell really specific niche fashion brands that aren’t readily recognizable to eBay’s relatively mass market consumer. Counterfiet stuff, scammers and fraud run rampant, to the point that smart sellers know to be careful selling internationally and smart buyers know to avoid sellers from certain countries. It’s not just the high end designer stuff but mid-range popular lines like Great China Wall, Rachel Pally, etc. If eBay were smart it’d solve the problem of not being able to move less mass market fashion brands, maybe with a standalone site like Amazon did with Endless. It’d also scrap and redo the digital magazine. The magazine could be an interesting idea given the company’s audience but lots about that user interface points to users leaving not staying.
November 3, 2009
So Finally
9 will have two new client projects going live soon. I’m excited. In case you’re new here, my startup makes business ideas for other people. We can make anything over any platform, and most clients come with a combination of at least two or more. Our job is to organize it, timeline it, build and bullet proof it, then work out the revenue — before it launches. It’s not a short process — we’ve been working on both of these for months. Because we’re involved in a company’s strategic and business plans, everything including the vendors we source out to are under mutual NDA. What I can share is that they’re both transmedia plays and both have really interesting models. They’ve been very unique and cool to build. What will launch is just one part of the bigger project we’re building. As soon as its up we’ll shift and start creating the other parts. It’s sexy stuff.
My first startup, Stylediary, has been listed as a favorit site of Lucky Magazine since back when I owned it. What girl entrepreneur does not love this?
November 2, 2009
Now Isn't This Interesting
Comcast and Apple, competing.
Of course, it’s to be expected. Everybody’s going to be finding themselves with all kinds of new competition in the not too distant future. If networks were smart, they’d avoid the flame. Success on any platform can belong to anyone: All it takes is building a customer base.
I'm New Here
I am new to cooking. I like it more when other people do it, especially if its home made. If I make anything, it’s vegetables, fish or eggs usually. I mostly don’t cook at all. A year ago, I set out to learn how to make five things from scratch and can currently make two. Trader Joe’s has the best frozen stuff like black bean mini tacos and tilapia. Does this count as cooking? I’m not sure. What I eat and make at home is inspired by all the amazing restaurants I’ve visited around the world. L.A. has such cool places to eat with the most interesting menus, wine and drinks. It carries over to how you eat at home. Even if you make everything at 400 degrees and in one pan. My all time favorite restaurant here? Mastros. I love the salmon and the salty pretzel bread.
October 29, 2009
On a panel at Digital Hollywood a week ago. Photo courtesy of the WGA
Old Media Still Brings It
Not long ago I had seen a bit of an analysis on the results driven from exposure on blogs/digital versus print media. What’s interesting is that it was print media, newspapers and magazines, that drove companies the most business. Lucky Magazine brought far more traffic and sales than Daily Candy. Even when it came to overall prestige, all sales aside, it is still far more coveted to be in the Wall Street Journal than the Huffington Post. We’re in a time where media insists on murdering itself with the claims of how its legacy offerings (print) have no value and are shrinking in numbers. Yet, even the White House said it was traditional media that it leveraged during the Obama campaign. It makes you wonder — do old media brands still hold a lot of weight and influence in the world around them, moreso than people might say and think?
I can’t think of a blogger who wouldn’t love a paid, mainstream media gig. Lots of blogs do columns and content syndication deals with old media, including newspapers, with much fan fare. It’s not to say that digital sites don’t have their merit, but when it comes down to it, alot of companies would rather be in the New York Times or Lucky Magazine than even the top blogs in a category but more importantly, when they are they’re seeing bigger results. I’ve seen it first hand. It’s not to say that there isn’t value in digital media, of course. But, clearly it at least somewhat suggests that “old’ print media brands and newspapers still have pull and merit in the market. If that’s the case, could they still possibly survive and even thrive in as everything rapidly moves to digital? Of course. It’s only trendy for people to say print is completely blown out of the picture — it’s not. There are still plenty of signs like these above to say otherwise. All it would take is the right course. Notice so far, that’s not the one the industry is chosing to take.
October 27, 2009
This Makes Me Want To...
I don’t agree with virtually any part of this article. Not only is it a little disturbing that the author starts with referencing film, then media, then TV (which one is it? all?) but also, the insight shared in it doesn’t add up. The person interviewed sounds like he has an amazing background in his industry, but just because someone has spent ten years in file sharing doesn’t mean they can accurately forecast platform business and where it’s heading in relation to the internet. I have always wanted to help you figure out this internet thing, business, because I know some things about it that might help. But after reading this, I don’t know. Maybe you are suicidal and nobody can help.
The RSS for this blog is http://patriciahandschiegel.tumblr.com/rss
1 of 23
next page
