Vice Brooklyn Giant Digital Media Inc. is full of money, ambition and confidence, but executives face the same challenge everyone bothersome: How can we make money with all these people on their mobile devices?
"The Holy Grail for every media company is now mobile,"
said founder and CEO Shane Smith in an interview with Bloomberg News this week. "Mobile is the Wild West.'s Scale where everyone is coming from, but it is very difficult to monetize at this time."
It is expected that mobile ad spending will grow 83 percent to $ 18 billion this year. But even with this growth, mobile only account for about 10 percent of the collective budgets marketers' while more than a quarter of all time spent online is now happening on a phone or tablet. Closing that gap is a fundamental objective for any media company in particular focusing on a young international crowd as Vice President.
"It's hard," Smith said. "All the questions came here three or four years ago, when it became a buzzword monetize species, and that everything is happening right now," Smith said. "I think Google is looking at her Facebook too.'s Number one concern worldwide, and is also our number one concern."
Smith did not refer directly to the latest round of accusations that Vice Blossoming allows operation to be influenced by news advertisers, but did say the walls of the company outside its news division sales ads.
"For Vice News, no advertising Vice News" said. "The most popular thing we have is our online news platform, which is the part of most rapid growth of our business, but do not actually put advertising next to it for that reason. Yet in travel, food , and all the other things that make a lot of money. We rob Peter to pay Paul. "
Of course, keep the display advertising news sites in no way prevents a brand to influence journalistic decisions. For example, recently a former editor said Vice Vice rejected story ideas as they may conflict with the advertising interests.
Smith reiterated its intention to maintain independent Vice, even when it's added capital investors to raise capital. "We are not selling in the short term," he said. "We just made a deal of such guarantees our independence for next time anyway. Raised $ 500 million to enter the mobile, go online and explore television network. So let's look at three screens and just keep going ".
As Vice expands on the news channels and becomes more sophisticated as a corporate entity, that you are attenuating the swashbuckling exploits its journalists are so known for? Certainly not in style, but perhaps a little in practice, Smith admitted. Vice has withdrawn from Liberia amid the severe crisis of Ebola.
"Back in the day, we might have left them there, and keep recording said," Smith said. "Now we're saying, look, we got our stuff, we'll get out of the way until we see which way the wind blows. Want to err on the side of caution."
