Stream of Consciousness: Stream What You Know
When I was in college, I thought I was a novelist. My first "major work" was a spy thriller, complete with nuclear submarines, an insane octogenarian Nazi with a blue tattoo on his face, and a heroine who doubled as a temporary secretary inher secret identity. My creative writing teacher hated it. The submarines were fine; the blue tattoo was a nice touch; but anybody who had ever worked as a temporary secretary knew that I had the details of my heroine¹s life all wrong. "Write," said my teacher, thunderously, predictably, "what you know."
Until I was lucky enough to land at streamingmedia.com, the main thrust of my streaming media experience was at freespeech.org ‹ a site with an almost non-existent budget and a decided lack of Hollywood flair (and about six times more traffic on a good day than DEN ever had in any given week, according to what I gather from third-party metrics). So, here is what I know: how to build something out of nothing, and beat the big money plays at their own game. Here is what I do not know: how to spend millions and millions of dollars on a successful online entertainment venture. (It turns out that most, if not all, of the people charged with spending that kind of money in online entertainment don¹t know how to succeed, either.) I write this column, then, for those of you in the trenches, building something new out of nothing, and either succeeding or failing on your own terms ‹ not on the terms of a venture capitalist or a board of directors. That's what I know. That's why I can speak with passion.
My creative writing teacher¹s advice doesn¹t apply only to this column, though, and it isn¹t just for me to follow. Writing isn¹t the only discipline that requires a thorough knowledge of, and dedication to, the subject matter at hand. If you¹re a regular reader of this magazine (or of our Web site, streaming media.com), you¹ve heard over and over again that niche content is the way to make entertainment work on the Web. But niche content, in and of itself, is not the answer: You must find the right niche to service. What constitutes the "right niche" will vary from one individual to the next, and from one company to the next.
And it¹s not just about the size of the niche or the monetary resources commanded by members of the niche. If you¹re going to work with the kind of single-minded effort required to lift your enterprise up by its own bootstraps, it had better be something you feel passionate about. By its very nature, niche content looks boring and stupid to those it isn¹t meant to reach. If you're bored and stupefied, your audience will be, as well. I, for example, would never start a Web site dedicated to pheasant hunting, no matter how much disposable income the pheasant hunting population may possess. I don't know what would appeal to pheasant hunters, nor do I know how to extract all of that money out of their tweedy pockets.
The worst mistake any streaming entertainment entrepreneur can make is to create a site that he or she is not personally interested in visiting. If you're a forty-something Hollywood executive who doesn't know jack about skateboards and punk rock, leave that kind of programming alone — no matter how profitable the niche may seem to be. Very likely, it won¹t be profitable for you. Stream what you love. Stream what you know.