IAC's Diller

InterActiveCorp chairman Barry Diller signaled his disbelief in the fragmenting audience and the future of consumer-generated content, also saying valuations have "gone nuts" and so it's more efficient to create than to buy existing properties, reports ClickZ.

Diller, in comments made at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit, laid out IAC's plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars over the next two years in the professional creation of original content, including a new humor site called 23/6. That original content would largely be supported, according to Diller, by in-house experts on search engine optimization, to help people find the content his company creates.

The idea of audience fragmentation, and its subsequent move down the long tail, was dismissed by Diller as not really happening. Content that generates large audience numbers and lives in the short tail of the demand curve will still rule, he said.

While consumer-generated content will have some place in some IAC properties, Diller said, professionally created material will resonate most deeply with audiences. Diller also chimed a skeptical note on social networks, saying they lacked significant ad monetization so far.