Ad-Supported Model, Harder than You’d Think— (LightSpeed Venture Partners Blog) This Silicon Valley VC runs several scenarios, each with the moral: You have to generate a LOT of page views to reach $50m in ad revenue. CIQ: Many good points. Another consider: Many sites are destined to be sold (Reddit, NeoPets, YouTube) to beef up established companies weak in digital. “In the last year, Viacom spent about $1 billion buying Web sites specializing in games, user-generated content and other entertainment likely to be popular with its young audiences.” (NYT 3/19) 

Can Media Companies Compete with You Tube?–(NYT) Viacom’s web properties have a quarter of YouTube’s videos and a third of the audience. But they are trying to build up both to compete. CIQ:Yesterday’s NYT Viacom/YouTube article suggested the two companies were negotiating.

J&J Makes Huge Digital Ad-Spend Shift— (Ad Age) A $250 million drop in traditional ad spending last year corresponds with the 20% increase in non traditional that experts expect this year. CIQ: From the movie Innerstate to BabyCenter.com, this giant is turning its back on old ways of advertising.