I love Lulu TV for their approach to business. This is truly Media 2.0 and business 2.0 coming to life. It marks the beginning of a new kind of partnership between professionals, citizens and media. Marketers need to find a new role for themselves in this model. To me it looks more disruptive than TiVo.
Look at why:
What's their business philosophy?
- Lulu TV is an eccentric economic entity owned and funded by everyone and no one. In other words, we haven't a clue how to define it. Call it a "stake holding, socio-communal, anarcho-capitalist, sharecropping, fair-trade, collectivist syndicate" if it makes you happy.
What's their business?
- Lulu TV drives internet creativity... because Lulu TV pays creators. It's an internet video channel. You upload stuff. Anything. We process it into every conceivable consumable, useable, viewable format. We syndicate it.
People view it, rate it, share it, praise it, link it and tell the world, their brother or transvestite lover what they think of it. Some videos are very popular. Some aren't (possibly because they're rubbish--who knows?).
On Lulu TV, popularity can pay, because content makers can set up a Shareholder account.
What's their revenue model?
- Shareholders pay a monthly account fee. 80% of the fees go into a cash pool. At the end of the month, all shareholders share in the pool. Let's say Lulu TV videos attracted 1M Viewers in one month. If you got 10,000 of those, that's 1%. So you get 1% of the cash pool.
Because this is how we pay, there are no ads, no banners, no pop ups: no one trying to sell you stuff you've never heard of that you never knew you wanted. Nice.