Never seen Diller speak in the flesh so am looking forward to this one.
Q: “Why did you buy Ask?”
A: Worried about search disintermediating own businesses. Eventually ceased to be worried – since they’re keeping innovating, not worried about being obliterated – and decided to go on the offensive. Talked to AOL but price was – “let’s just say it was high.” Saw Ask as having potentially differentiating possibilities, plunged into arrangement protectable on the downside (due to rising tide of online advertising) – if they failed, would still be OK. Of course, not out there to fail, want to gain share.
How to gain share? Think they have a good chance – Q: “How?” (Battelle pressing question.) A: Gather services altogether to differentiate product in as many good ways as possible. Makes consumer say ‘oh, I want that.’ Think the service is there now – gives smart answers, binocular feature, narrow & expand search, etc. Really appealing stuff, challenge to make them dramatic enough and market them loudly enough. Want to then leverage the 50 million people who come through IAC. Best vertical search in many verticals. (I want to see Barry’s take on shopping search, but that’s another story.
Q: “What comes to mind when you think of Google?” (laughter)
A: “Maybe the evil that I would do to them.” (Barry has a good evil grin.) Google – first ones to clean the page up and have that simple box – a kind of genius. Did this magic thing. Talking Ford and GM. Ford owned the market until GM came along and offered choice. Re: Google – great service but not likely that it’ll have 35%+ share over time.
Q: Before Internet mogul, Barry was a media mogul. Google / Yahoo taking steps towards media mogul. Barry – are you headed back to being a media mogul?
A: All very hypothetical but does envision getting naturally back into that space. Barry sees company as distribution-agnostic, not an Internet company, not a media company – the two are converging anyway, coming through the search box. Media or internet – really, it’s going to be one world.
Q: One of the things that’s changing – Murdoch buying MySpace, etc. Shift from created media by professionals to ‘prosumer’ media – created by individuals.
A: User-generated important. E.g. match.com – “may provide the template, but don’t – thank God – provide the actual product.” Yet talent always outs. Very few people are really talented and can’t find there way out, talent very limited. Individual expression – audience of 8-12 people will be interested. Yet people with power and expertise in making media products are not going to be replaced by 18 million people making their own home videos.
Q: But what of Murdoch? (re: buying MySpace)
A: “Either he’s bought these things very cheap or they’re worthless.” No in-between. “Murdoch takes risk.” Anecdote about Murdoch betting the company and laughing when founding Fox.
Q: When you heard eBay was buying Skype, what was your reaction?
A: No business commenting on another company…
Q: Did you call your bankers and ask them why you didn’t see and do this deal?
A: “You must be crazy.” Notes then that it might not be crazy for eBay. It’s a speculative buy, but not his business to say…
Q: What’s your view of where we are on broadband, esp. public policy?
A: We have no public policy, really. Yet broadband adoption taking place. Slow, is a shame, failure is a failure of national policy. Innovation hobbled by the fact that we’re behind in broadband adoption. Not just our system (of creative chaos) that’s slowed us up.
Q: You are involved in an issue – Net Neutrality. Educate us?
A: Anybody other than telephone companies, etc. wants to be able to press a button and publish anywhere. Not like television, radio which are based on scarcity, gatekeepers. The opposite of that. As big, big companies get more and more distribution, don’t want to go to gatekeepers, etc. Wants to pass a law to ensure no provider can charge / restrict another from providing a service, using their dominant position as an advantage. (Hmm – I need to read more about this one.)
Audience question time:
Q: Talking somewhat dismissively about microcontent, things 5-10 people would want to see – sounds like you’re talking like a media mogul, not an Internet mogul. Why is big media losing market share?
A: Both have a role, but when we talk about mass audiences, professional play a role. He doesn’t think that individual user-generated media isn’t going to play a role but still believes a relatively few professionals will supply the mass entertainment – TV, film, games – because there’s not that much talent out there.
Q: What steps do you see smaller folk without lots of capital taking to meet the challenges of the convergence of Internet & media?
A: What you need is a great idea, else doesn’t matter. Good ideas resonate on the Internet – nothing stands in the way, unlike other media where there’s gatekeepers.
Q: Net Neutrality – have you given any thought to competiton at the network level as an alternate means to get what you want?
A: No. Telcos have an embedded system. Can’t stand the fact that telephone calls are going to be free, etc. Considered primarily with what’s passing on the network – that it’s neutral, not controlled by telcos.
