Content Matters

This afternoon was the Previews segment of the SIIA Information Industry Summit.

Previews spotlights emerging companies in the content and technology space - companies with less than $2 million in revenues, less than $10 million in funding and who have received only angel or early stage funding.

The opening panel of Previews focused on the business and investment climate.  Bambi Francisco, the longtime Marketwatch columnist and currently an entrepreneur, served as moderator.  The panelists included Robert Levitan, CEO of Pando Networks, Greenhill SAVP managing director Brian Hirsch, PwC partner David Silverman, and Ed Reitler, partner at Reitler, Brown & Rosenblatt.

Bambi Francisco described the current climate where she is seeing a rise in angel networks.  With dramatically reduced startup costs, companies don't need the big funding that a VC could provide.  Today, there are lots of one-man shops with websites generating millions of page views. 

The panelists were all bullish on the startup market's ability to withstand a recession.  Brian Hirsch suggested that the business climate is almost irrelevant when it comes to innovation noting that, historically, some of the greatest companies were born during the worst economic times.  In some ways, in this market, startups have the chance to work on their products with less competition.

In terms of specific industries, David Silverman saw great growth continuing in the energy, biotech and medical devices spaces.  In the NY area, he suggests that Internet advertising will continue to get funding.  Brian Hirsch is very bullish on the lead generation space though is hesitant about the prospects for other online advertising models.  He noted that while online advertising has shown super growth, if you peel away the Google numbers, what's left is much more modest growth.

Pando's Robert Levitan suggested that the video advertising market is ripe for reinvention.  He expects the next few years to bring to video the same level of innovation that we previously saw in text-based search.