Mark Cuban vs. YouTube: 0 for 2
I had the pleasure of attending Cuban's talk, I even had a front row seat. I reported on his remarks under the headline: “Mark Cuban: HDNet, YouTube, Mavericks and the art of calculated hype.”
Although the Reuters “story” on Cuban’s keynote does not admirably reflect Reuters' touted “Editorial Policy,” it served to ignite a deluge of derivative “moronic” coverage.
My opening:Mark Cuban got away cheap this morning in New York City. His Advertising Week keynote lobbed digs at the National Basketball Association (NBA), but no fines were levied for conduct unbecoming.
The “out-of-control” on the basketball court Cuban was no where to be found on the staid McGraw Hill auditorium stage. For more than an hour Cuban charmingly put forth his familiar critiques of the NBA and YouTube while shrewdly building an advertising business case for high-def programming and his own HDNet.
Reuters' opening:
Billionaire investor and dot-com veteran Mark Cuban had harsh words on Thursday for YouTube, the online site that lets people share video clips, saying only a "moron" would purchase the wildly popular start-up.
My reporting put forth lengthy highlights of the real focus of Cuban’s keynote: promotion of his Dallas Mavericks NBA property and his HDNet hi-def television property.
Reuters' reporting put forth paragraph after paragraph about the operations of YouTube, despite the company’s claims that “The world relies on Reuters journalists to provide accurate, clearly sourced accounts of events as they occur.”I concluded my story by reporting on the question I put to Cuban during the Q & A following the formal remarks.
My Question to Cuban:
You began your talk by indicating you purposefully made provocative comments last season about an opposing sports team to build your Mavericks' value. Are the provocative comments you made about YouTube this morning designed to build the value of your HDNet?
Cuban responded by restating his case for why YouTube “so reminds me of the early days of Napster.”
In my follow-up story, “Mark Cuban on user generated content: Bad for ads, great for (my) free biz dev.” I report on how Cuban’s colorful keynote commentary shed light on the shrewd business development tactics behind the success of his diverse enterprises, often at others’ expense:
Mark Cuban said a lot more than beware YouTube “morons” at his Advertising Week keynote last week in New York City, I know because I was there.
I asked Cuban if his inflammatory anti YouTube commentary was designed to enhance the value of his own content businesses, as I recount in “Mark Cuban: HDNet, YouTube, Mavericks and the art of calculated hype.”…
At his keynote last week, Cuban conveyed that he willingly gives out his public email address with the hopes of gaining free, user-generated biz dev advice from the public. At the same time, however, he dismissed the worth of user-generated content to advertisers.
Barely two weeks after Cuban’s keynote, Google announced its agreement to acquire YouTube. While Google can be justifiably labeled many things—shrewd, calculating, exploitative (Cuban traits, as well)—its $144 billion market cap does not support a label of “moron.”
Strike one for Cuban on the YouTube scorecard.
Cuban recently took to his blogmaverick for a go at Google’s deal with YouTube, as I report in “Citizen journalism by email ‘gossip’: Fourth estate?,”:
Should citizen journalism based on simple republication of anonymous, unsubstaniated emails and postings circulated throughout the blogosphere be celebrated?
Why has Mark Cuban reposted an anonymous post plucked from a “list” as the latest installment in his YouTube, Google and the “morons” series?”…
why does such email and posting gossip gain traction? Not only in the blogosphere, but by “mainstream” media as well, including the vaunted “Paper of Record.”
I will pass on Cuban.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt also passed on Cuban’s gossip during a Q & A at the Web 2.0 conference Tuesday, as I reported yesterday in “Google CEO: Don’t trust Internet gossip (I agree!)”:
Schmidt’s commentary on the "coverage" of Google’s impending purchase of YouTube, struck a chord with me: Schmidt may not be betting against the Internet, but he is betting against gossip spread via the Internet, and so am I!
Schmidt discounted yesterday the Mark Cuban fueled rumors that I discounted last week.
Strike two for Cuban on the YouTube scorecard.
Mark Cuban vs. YouTube: 0 for 2!