Will March Madness be Lloyd’s ‘Lucy’ moment?

Yahoo!’s content king, Lloyd Braun, was supposed to bring a little Hollywood glitz to the Internet company’s entertainment push. Yet despite promising an I Love Lucy hit for the Web, so far he’s produced some so-so efforts, like Kevin Sites’ reporting from war zones and a travelogue by Richard Bangs. (The future of content apparently involves sending me to strange lands.) Now, Braun is saying he’s seen the light: The Web isn’t made for a mass hit. Instead, he’s jumping on the user-generated content train. But the real “Lucy” moment for Web video might come next week, when CBS streams the opening-round games of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. AOL attracted 5 million viewers to its airing of Live 8 concerts on a July weekend. We’re wagering more office-bound workers will want to steal some hoops games on company time. CBS certainly thinks so, and is even helpfully providing a “boss button” that pops up a spreadsheet should you get the wrong kind of cubicle drop by.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

March 10, 2006 in Morrissey | Permalink