The company itself would have to have something to say, not the on-air talent. If there’s no message the portal wants to get across and nothing that they want the public to know about their company, there’s no point. There’s no more “Tecnhorati Buzz”. There’s no more “The 9″. As far as I know, there never WAS a YouTube show.

It also depends on whether the portal is a back-end video host or a destination site. If you’re a destination, you may have some relationship to your community that would cause them to see your show as a credible, reliable curator of what’s worth watching. If there’s no community to speak of, you really can’t count on getting lots of views, other than the views driven to your show by the content creators that you’re showcasing… and those aren’t YOUR fans anyway… they’re THEIR fans.

Anyway, my suggestion to portals that are thinking about making shows is to stay focused on the point they’re trying to get across and leave the entertainment to entertainers.

When we first started Viral, it was a challenge to find quality shows to feature. Fortunately, as time went by, overall production quality improved and now, we have professional content being created specifically for broadband and mobile devices.

Our challenge now is developing a way to discover all this great talent. The internet provides an infinite amount of programming, but what good is that programming if no one can find it? Algorithms and complex mathematical formulas may help in the process, but at the end of the day, we all want a familiar face to help guide the way- and that’s why we created Viral.

It was really fun while it lasted, and I still believe it’s a great formula to helping people discover great internet content. I also encourage other internet companies to consider original programming as a way to connect with their audiences.

We’re definitely on to something here….

I use Veoh.

Veoh had a frikkin SERIES?!

Veoh doesn’t know how to advertise itself — to its own users!

In general, I think it is a waste of time for portals to create their own content. There have been plenty of unsuccessful series that prove that this is the case. The portals need to spend their time developing a better user experience, as well as finding the “right” content via licensing deals and the programming/scheduling strategies.

Its no surprise that the Viral show was not successful on Veoh. A quick review of the popular content on Veoh shows that the majority of the user engagement comes from anime fans who like to upload. ;) (They were probably aware of this when they negotiated the deal with Divx to push all the Stage9 traffic to Veoh once Stage9 was closed down.)

It will be interesting to see how web series, whose goal is to be sold into the broadcast arena, will develop strategies to engage a broad fan base so that the success of the series is not dependent on the programming strategies used by the portals. (although having those relationships in place is very helpful)

-/ Charles

My view is that VEOH really has to make a decision about what it can do differently from YouTube. They have huge capital and some audience traction, but it is very unclear to those of us watching from afar how they will be different. I know why I should go to Hulu, but I don’t know why I should go to VEOH. Veoh is not a part of my life and ultimately I don’t really know why it’s a part of anybody’s life.

This is not to say VEOH doesn’t have good qualities, but it is to say that they are most famous for raising capital and fighting litigation than most other things.