Ryan MacMillan

I really did pick the long straw in terms of categories. You’re onto a winner when you can pick out a two minute Will Ferrell comedy masterpiece to show and discuss with your audience. There was some lively discussion and plenty of disagreement on what was interesting, what works, what doesn’t and what’ll be big in 2009. But the votes are in, they’ve been counted, there’s been a couple of re-counts, but these were the most discussed and debated sites:

1. Hulu. Video was the big topic of conversation - how it’ll be consumed, how it’ll be monetised, the continuing move away from UGC and back towards high quality output. And for brand managers, how to get decent content out there at an affordable cost. Good news for companies, such as Visible Measures, who are helping us think of new ways of measuring user engagement with video.
2. 23andme. Lots of different opinions on whether people would be interested enough in their DNA to pay $399 to find out more. Quite a few people picked up on the ancestry/geneology angle. But there were a few comments on the marketing approach - lots of different benefits listed, but no clear idea of who the target audience for the product is. But overall, a lot of agreement that there’ll be lots of room for new forms of entertainment  - over and above the usual music, movies, TV, sport, gaming mainstays.
3. Funnyordie. Universally popular - who doesn’t like Will Ferrell. And a few mentions of how much more sense it makes for a comedy superstar on top of his game to be launching this type of site rather than, say, a beer brand.
4. Nowplayit. What’s not to like about Paul McCartney teaching you how to play one of his songs - even if it’s one of his new songs. The musicians amongst our audience talked about how they use YouTube to watch and study artists playing tracks live. Lots of potential, it seems, for more entertainment/education cross-overs.
5. Purchance/Swoopo/Madbid. Purchance was on our original list, but discussion soon broadened out to cover a number of the new auction and e-commerce models. Lots of the discussion, but the consensus was that most of these sites were not going to be long for this world.

And there you have it. Thanks to everyone who came over to chat on Thursday night.