Case | HBS Case Collection | 2013 (Revised from original 2012 version)

Bluefin Labs

by John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

Abstract

Bluefin Lbas built a system that gathered, from Twitter and other sources, millions of hourly social media postings, comments, and viws on television, in an effort to build a new set of metrics to describe TV programs and broadcast advertising. CEO Deb Roy said: "We want to measure audience engagement, not just media consumption." But what was the value of audience engagement? How could it be quantified and factored into the analyses necessary for making programming decisions and setting advertising rates? Nielsen had become the gold standard in the broadcast industry, and felt confident in their data. Could Bluefin's system provide new insights to marketers and broadcasters? Or would it merely tell them what they already know?

Language: English

Format: Print

13 pages

Citation:

Deighton, John, and Leora Kornfeld. "Bluefin Labs." Harvard Business School Case 512-049, February 2013. (Revised from original January 2012 version.)

Cheezburger Network was a Web publisher of humorous, user-contributed content, using social media for dissemination, and selling advertising against the traffic of 1 billion page views per quarter. In January 2011, it raised $30 million in venture capital for the network of 50 websites that featured an entertaining array of user-generated content. Beginning with a site based on pictures of cats with whimsical captions, it had grown into a small but impressive digital empire, riding waves of viral content. CEO Ben Huh prided himself on his ability to go from idea to implementation in just a few days, but this just-in-time method made strategic planning difficult. Profitable from day one and with $5 million of revenue across 50 brand identities, Huh's challenge was to evaluate his growth to date, to look critically at the digital media landscape, and to figure out how to best to spend the $30 million.

Four businesses had, by 2012, grown to dominate the infrastructure that all firms rely on to reach online customers. Will the balance of power among the four persist, will one take command at the expense of the other three, or are all four more vulnerable than they seem to outside forces? What are the implications for the pace at which consumers go online? Amara's Law claims that we tend to overestimate change in the short run, and underestimate it in the long run.

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