Yahoo raises eyebrows with Hollywood push

updated 6:20 p.m. ET April 3, 2005

Five years ago, a handful of companies with names like Pop, Pseudo and Icebox promised a future when original shows produced for the Internet would replace traditional TV viewing.

The dot-com bust deflated those grand ambitions.

But the vision of creating unique, interactive multimedia programming for a generation weaned on video games is very much alive at Yahoo Inc.

The giant Internet portal isn’t talking about its plans for content. But analysts suggest a profound shift may be at work, with Yahoo using its enormous reach to force Hollywood studios, among other video creators, to produce programming with the Internet in mind.

Yahoo can offer up a worldwide audience of more than 300 million — a number that some analysts say could reach 1 billion by the end of the decade.

“Those are numbers that are sufficient to make the likes of Rupert Murdoch salivate and turn green with envy,” said David Garrity, an Internet and media analyst with Caris & Co., referring to the owner of a media empire that includes Fox television and movie studios.

Yahoo has already forged partnerships to webcast content from other media. It showed the entire debut episode of the Showtime series “Fat Actress,” starring Kirstie Alley, at the same time the episode was broadcast on cable.

It also features exclusive behind-the-scenes footage from the Mark Burnett-produced NBC shows “The Apprentice” and “The Contender,” and offers material from JibJab, the two guys who created the animated short cartoon that lampooned presidential candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry.

America Online has similarly broadcast the first episode of the WB Television series “Jack & Bobby” and features exclusive musical performances in its “Sessions AOL” series.

Yahoo chairman and chief executive Terry Semel said recently that 75 percent of users access the portal using high-speed connections, making it possible to stream video of all sorts, including content by individual users.

“Our great attributes are interactive,” said Semel, the former co-CEO of Warner Bros. “We have huge audiences who themselves are the programmer.”

Among other moves, Yahoo recently signed a deal to buy Canadian photo-sharing startup Flickr Inc., which lets people upload digital photos, publish photos in their blogs and share digital photo albums. Another recently launched Yahoo site lets users search for writings, lyrics, photos and other content authored by people who want others to use their ideas as the basis for new creations — the so-called “Creative Commons.” Then there’s the newly announced social networking service, Yahoo 360.

It all speaks to Yahoo executives’ excitement about “micropublishing” — letting the portal’s users create content attractive to fellow users that will encourage people to hang around in Yahoo’s virtual world.

It’s a vision shared by others who see a future where people aren’t just passive viewers of content but participate in creating the “TV shows” of tomorrow.

One company built on the concept is Brightcove, a startup that envisions a day when “Internet Television” offers thousands of channels of content, some produced by traditional TV companies and much produced by individuals as the cost of digital cameras and editing tools drops.

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