7 seats left:
Join us Dec. 1-3 in New Orleans for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit
The Barbarian Group COO Rick Webb has some tough words for Silicon Valley. He has little time for those arguing there isn’t a bubble right now in tech company valuations, zeroing in on those that have ad-dependent business models. For all that Silicon Valley companies lament the lack of tech savvy in the advertising, the opposite is clearly true. Webb makes that point clear:
Brands don’t actually want or need any more media channels. As far as they’re concerned, the internet can stop now. We have enough channels. We were happy when we had like seven (TV, print, outdoor, radio, in-store, direct and theater), got a little interested in the first few new ones. Urinals? Uh, okay. Banners? Interesting. Google? Yes. Groupon, Farmville, GroupMe? OKAY I AM GETTING TIRED NOW. Silicon Valley seems to think that advertising’s appetite for new media channels is unending. It is not.
Read more on The Barbarian Group blog. For a counterpoint, see angel investor Chris Dixon and venture capitalist Brad Feld.
More in Media
Media Briefing: Publishers turn to paid audience acquisition tactics to tackle traffic losses
November 13, 2025
Publishers facing declining organic traffic are buying audiences through paid ads and traffic arbitrage, and using AI tools to do it.
When bots look like buyers: agentic traffic causing new publisher headaches
November 12, 2025
The real issue is measurement: without a clear way to separate agentic visitors from humans, some buyers are getting jittery — and a few are already pulling ad spend.
Job cuts hit 22-year October high as retail layoffs from Amazon to Target mount ahead of holidays
November 11, 2025
Employers slashed 153,074 jobs last month, up 175% from a year earlier, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.