Archive for April 27th, 2008
Sold for $10 Million now worth $7 Billion
Today turns out to be the twenty year anniversary of when George Lucas sold Pixar to Steve Jobs. In the post, ”February 3, 1986: Divorce, Mogul Style,” Chris Seibold tells how Lucas decided to “see a smallish piece of his Lucas Film empire” to raise cash to settle his divorce. Given Lucas’ predicament, Steve Jobs was able to bring Lucas’ initial asking price of 30 million dollars to 10 million.
For years, the company Steve Jobs called a hobby was little but a serious money pit. Unexpectedly, Pixar became the source of the majority of Steve Jobs’ immense wealth after an extremely successful initial public offering. It was this month in 1986 that Steve first acquired the hobby that eventually paid off big.
On January 24 of this year, Disney announced paying $7.4 billion in stock to acquire Pixar. Jobs will be on Disney’s board of directors, and two executives from Pixar will head the new Pixar and Disney Animation Studios and lead the creative vision. See ”Disney buys Pixar” at CNET for more.
The takeaway for my Web 2.0 readers? On the one hand, be careful of the decisions you make when you’re in financial need (eg. startups trying to cash-out). On the other, your hobby (eg. your “little web app”) may sometimes become much more than that, but only if you take it seriously.
http://www.emilychang.com/go/weblog/comments/twenty-years-later-no-longer-just-a-hobby/
Add comment April 27, 2008
Making money on the web with videos .
Learning how to turn a flashlight into a laser is not a top priority for most people. Yet Kip Kedersha’s step-by-step instructional video that teaches how to do just that has been seen online by more people (1.88 million) than live in Manhattan (about 1.6 million).
Mr. Kedersha’s online library of 94 videos includes tips on how to chill a Coke in two minutes, simulate a gunshot wound and start up a PC quickly.
Many of the clips have been played hundreds of thousands of times, turning Mr. Kedersha into the top earner on Metacafe, a video-sharing Web site that pays the makers of popular videos. In little more than a year, the site has written him checks totaling $102,000.
That puts Mr. Kedersha, a 50-year-old video producer from St. Petersburg, Fla., near the front of the latest online stampede: the rush to capitalize on the popularity of how-to videos on the Web.
“You never know when something like this is going to go away,” Mr. Kedersha said. “I better ride the wave.
Add comment April 27, 2008
