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Huffington Post is a Hot Media with the Right Formula, VC Investor Eric Hippeau Explains

Tony Perkins interviews Eric Hippeau, Softbank Capital

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[Start of Audio]

Tony Perkins: Hi. Tony Perkins; very good friend with Andy Plesser; also journalist at – always on; I’m sitting in for Andy here today, and sitting next to me is a very good friend, Eric Hippeau, who’s a managing partner for SoftBank Capital. Welcome to the Always On media event.

Eric Hippeau: Hey, Tony. Thanks for having me here. It’s a great event.

Tony Perkins: It’s pretty crazy. You’re one of the only venture capitalists that is bold enough to really look at content place, and you’ve made a bold investment in the Huffington Post, which is just going like gangbusters, so I wanted to get a little insight from you on what that investment is all about and what the vision is behind your investment.

Eric Hippeau: We just feel that the Huffington Post’s formula of doing news, which is a lot of personality, breaking news, immediate feedback from the blogging community, as well as the people who are on the sides.

It’s exactly what people are looking for in terms of a new site, so we – our vision at the Huffington Post is gonna be the web’s newspaper.

Tony Perkins: Okay, so what happens – obviously, the one thing that’s fixed in the world is the amount of time people have to consume content, so if Huffington Post continues to go like gangbusters like it is, it’s stealing mindshare from something else. Where’s it stealing mindshare from, do you think?

Eric Hippeau: Well, I haven’t really thought about that too much. I would imagine that it might steal share from the traditional newspapers on their own websites. It might steal some mindshare from kind of generic, new sites that’s called them, where all you get is just the breaking news, but you don’t get the commentary; you don’t get the background; you don’t get the personality.

Tony Perkins: So are people sticking around because they get to interact in boosting those kinds of numbers like the average visit time, which obviously advertisers like because that’s part of the formula?

Eric Hippeau: The average visit time on the Huffington Post – and you can verify this through Alexa or ComScore – is one of the highest, certainly one of the highest in the news category, and it’s actually very, very high compared to all other content.

Tony Perkins: One other thing I’ve noticed is that many times, the headline story will be summarized by the Huffington editors, but it’ll take you to like Time Magazine. Are they just looking at news stories, picking the best source, and then throwing it up for debate in their community? Is that the strategy there?

Eric Hippeau: Yes, this allows us to put a lot of news up. We direct traffic to the people who originated the news, which is only fair, but when we feel that there is enough depth or importance, then we can add a lot of context, and, of course, add the whole discussion part.

Tony Perkins: So last question: Five years out from now, do you think that all media sites will have to be like the Huffington Post and open up their brands for interactivity in community or be left behind or is there gonna be room for printed newspapers and one-way new sites?

Eric Hippeau: Look, the statistics for printed newspapers aren’t very good. The readership is aging rapidly and is not being replaced by young people. The answer to your first part of the question is absolutely. You cannot have content that doesn’t have interactivity; otherwise, it will be of no interest to people.

Tony Perkins: Well, that’s great. Well, as an online content producer, I appreciate that guys like you are out pumping money into good content producers. I don’t see a lot of that happening in Silicon Valley, so you should be very successful, I would predict, and thanks for being on the show.

Eric Hippeau: Thanks, Tony.

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AlwaysOn, AO Media, Tony Perkins, Huffington Post, Eric Hippeau, Softbank Capital

The Online Video Revolution will be Our Legacy -- Watch Twyla Tharp Dance with Me!!!!

Twyla Tharp

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Twyla Tharp: I started working with cameras for a couple of reasons. One is I grew up in a drive-in theater, so I always saw everything in two dimensions coming out of a camera, so I didn’t know what I was doing until I could be a Hollywood movie star. So I needed to get a video camera.

The other reason is because I’ve spent a career doing sessions, where I invent material. I don’t necessarily remember the material from those sessions, but because I have recorded a lot of it, I have access to that material.

And I’ve been doing this since the late ‘60s, so I have a documentation of myself as a dancer from the time when I was very young until I’m not so very young.

Andy Plesser: Dance, unlike music, that can be properly annotated, exactly annotated through sheet music, let’s say, does not have that same – it’s not the same medium. How can video help to both archive, but also create a sort of a medium that can be passed along to other generations?

Twyla Tharp: Video is becoming the text of choice for dance. There are two systems at least that have been utilized in the past, the Beneche and Lav annotation. They are both very labor-intensive, and they can’t contain all of the detail that’s involved in very, very complicated movement.

So if one has access to video cameras and can shoot multi-angled, you have a document that preserves what is that work, and I have every piece I’ve made, which is 130-some-odd, since ’65 on tape since after the first five years. I don’t have the first five years.

Andy Plesser: And what do you hope – what are your hopes for the archives and sort of beyond just chronicling your work and being in Archives for Scholars; how would video work for you or for other choreographers?

Twyla Tharp: Well, having the pieces contained with an archive base means that when the pieces are taught to other companies, to other generations of dancers, they can be taught responsibly and accurately and that there is a standard control.

As I’m sure you’re aware, every live performance is different, and every live performer has their own version of the material, and what this affords is what I think of as a re-adaptation. I mean, it would be as though, to use a grandiose example; we only knew Shakespeare from one player’s documentation as opposed to the text that Shakespeare put down, and the archival documentation can give detail that a performer will lose and can give intension that a performer may not even be aware of, coming from the choreographer that will help guide future generations of people who wanna learn from this material and who wanna present it.

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Twyla Tharp, Choreography, Dance

Online Video is Set to Transform the Performing Arts and Twyla Tharp Will be Major Force

Twyla Tharp, Choreographer

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[Start of Audio]

Andy Plesser: So, Twyla, what are we watching now?

Twyla Tharp: So here, we have me, doing what is an improv; namely to say I did it once and once only and couldn’t have remembered what I’d started with or where I went or how it ended without this tape.

This is off a Panasonic deck. It’s an open-face, reel‑to‑reel system that weighed – just the recording unit, about 80 pounds, and it gave me the opportunity to document my pregnancy term and what I could do.

Each week, I recorded a single reel of tape because I couldn’t afford any more than that, and used the same piecing as underneath it, so nothing changed except the evolving pregnancy. Here, she’s pretty far along.

Andy Plesser: The video was helpful to you in terms of planning things out or like a sketchbook?

Twyla Tharp: No, here, all my – my only intent here was that this, itself, is a work of art. It’s a dancer, continuing to work over the evolution of the pregnancy, but in addition to that, I was working at a very special time in my life emotionally, obviously, because here I am with another little being, a very special little being, and we’re dancing together.

That’s never gonna happen again, and the only way I could have captured that was on videotape. We couldn’t afford film, so I had that, and after I had done this commercial project, I wanted to reground myself. I’d been working for

Hollywood

for about a year, and I’m going, “Wait a minute. Where has everybody gone to,” and I’m saying, “Oh, well, you got you.”

So I went into the archive and pulled out the old tape; started looking at it again, and I found material in it that suggested new ways of moving for the company that I had to support, who also were in here, and they needed a new dance and so I looked at her. I always object to find myself and talk in the third person when I’m watching her, and I pulled out moves that I could use to make a piece, which was called Bakers Dozen, so then Bakers Dozen; you can see.

Andy Plesser: Let’s see.

Twyla Tharp: All right, Bakers Dozen is – I will try now to see if I can get there and see what happens.

Andy Plesser: “Yes, now power.” [Whispering]

Twyla Tharp: Teaching material; no, performance.

Andy Plesser: “Yes.” [Whispering]

Twyla Tharp: Okay, let’s see if it’s working.

Andy Plesser: “Yes.” [Whispering]

Twyla Tharp: Okay, now, all I gotta do is make it big. Oh, this is the hard part. Okay, let me come down here and see if I can get it. Watch this dragon.

Andy Plesser: “Yes, power; yes.” [Whispering]

Twyla Tharp: Okay, good. Music by Willy ‘The Lion’ Smith. All right. Here’s the beginning, and this all came because of the pregnant lady and the farmhouse attic five or six years before.

[Music]

Twyla Tharp: Okay, I’m gonna fast-forward. The piece is composited; the first section is all duets, of which there are 6 because there’s a cast of 12. These are all duets, duets, duets. The next section is trios. These are trios, trios, trios. The next section is quartets, and Sarah Rudner; Sarah Rudner is heaven. Sarah started dancing with me in ’66, and she was there for the next 20 years and fabulous.

This is sextets, and then the end section features what we call the “Garbage Truck” because you’ve got 11 people who come in and leave one back for a little mini-solo, and then Garbage Truck returns, picks that one up and drops off another one, and then Garbage Truck, etc. through to the ending.

So you see that’s how it works.

Andy Plesser: That’s very good. Is that sort of a sketchbook?

Twyla Tharp: The video? It’s a sketchbook, but it’s a very important kind of emotional sketchbook because it documents so much of the personal moment, not just the frozen –

Andy Plesser: Yeah, it captures kind of the emotional imperative of your work, your creative moment, and it can call back that, in a sense.

Twyla Tharp: Yes, it can. It’s pro-Smedlin. It’s pro-Smedlin. It brings back all that resonance.

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Twyla Tharp