Changes Is Good

I’m an old man. I dont pretend to know much about the younger generation but from what I summize, when your a sexy, gregarious 25 year old, hotly pursued by media moguls and rock stars, chances are your going to “get around”. While I’m loath to call someone a slut for have a healthy appetite the sheer number of partners one particular 25 year old has been partnering with is a bit shocking. And no I’m not talking about Paris Hilton. The 25 year old I have in mind year old I have in mind has done more partner swapping then Carmen Electra and has been with more tech industry “big boys” then Jenna Jameson. From film makers to gamers and Internet moguls this 25 year old seems to have dedicated this summer to getting into every niche and cranny of the digital world. A look back at the deals they’ve done reveals a lot about their approach to the digital space as well as their chances of success.

If you havent guessed it already the 25 year old I’m thinking of is none other then Viacom’s MTV network. The company has been on a digital rampage since fellow Brooklynite and MTV Prexy, Christina Norman, announced a restructuring aimed at ensuring the company was a player in the emerging multi-platform world. They didnt form a group, hire a resume or issue a press release. They restructured the company and how it handled its content production, marketing and distribution. MTV was putting the media world on notice and this summer has shown that they were serious.

It actually started last year, with NeoPets, iFilm and GameTrailers.com all hoping into bed with MTV. Kid’s, games, and A.D.D. Tv, this will be a theme so watch for it. Then it started to really heat up for MTV with a few spring flings. While other media companies where whining about YouTube and threatening to sue it, MTV signed a deal with them to hand over clips from its MTV2 brand, for super distribution. It then announced a deal with Cisco promoting a multi-campus Digital Incubator where digital media created by student teams would compete for $25k.

In May, MTV’s much hyped iTunes killer, Urge, launched to polite reviews and general user apathy. The deal had MTV’ pimping the beast in Redmond to integrate its music store within Windows Media 11 and is the content source/store for the upcoming Zune player. Ever the saucy minx, MTV signed a deal a month later with Apple computers, Microsoft’s arch-rival in the digital music space, to hawk her TV programming in the uber popular iTunes music store. The main difference between the deals appears to be largely that MTV “programs” Urge but only supplies content iTunes.

A fickle and somewhat cruel lover, MTV signed a deal with Google on the one year anniversary of its signing a similar deal with Yahoo. The MTV/Google agreement, which calls for Google to distribute ad supported MTV content as well as sell downloads via its video store, is slated to begin later this month. Selected sites that display the clips from the MTV Google coupling will get a share of the ad revenue.

In the parlance of college students, MTV “hooked-up” with Y2M owners of College Publisher producers of frat houses party announcements across the country. The College Publisher network includes 450 online campus newspapers which will have access to “rich media” content from MTV programming to run on their sites, when the deal closes later this year. Yet another coupling which further embeds MTV into the lives of the 18 - 24 set and extends the companies brands and products to yet another screen central to the lives of this group.

Not even the record temperatures across the country could slow torrid pace of activity at MTV which picked-up Atom Entertainment this week. Atom Entertainment is the parent company of the Atom Films, Shockwave.com as well as a number of other smaller sites. Atom films is iFilm’s long time nemesis and provides MTV is additional A.D.D. Tv fodder as well as some interesting original content while at the same time delivering gaming content and audiences.

One of the most striking things about MTV’s seemingly haphazard approach to digital dominance is that it has in the course of a summer released product on every platform, experimented with every business model, dabbled in every technology and executed several major acquisitions. In short its moved fast, taken risks, learned a bunch and placed some bets both big and small. How many other big media companies can say that? Is it going to work? Who knows. But when it comes to hard-lessons, smalls wins, good friends and experience dividends, MTV is well ahead of the pack.

Fabulosos, is it tome to double up up on VIA.B and short your TWX?