“Well from my perspective, a film costs a lot of money. You could build three hospitals with the cost of one film and I take that very seriously. I take the responsibility of being a person involved in a piece of that product. The only way to be decent about it is to make that money back so at least you don’t feel that money is wasted.

If it’s cost a hundred million dollars and that money is completely wasted – it never even makes its money back – that would be so mortifying to me. What a waste of money. Better to put it into a hospital. Do you see what I’m saying?

So I feel it’s my responsibility to help the investors – and the investors are often you and me. We don’t realize it, but it’s our pension funds. Through that bank or company that’s investing in this hedge fund, that is investing in the film. So I feel a fiscal responsibility to help the investors.”

I know the resources for larger budget films typically come from multiple sources but I suppose I never realized how the failure of a film could have an effect on some of these funds. Go see a Helen Mirren film.

Scoble’s argument is that companies doing really great things in Israel may, or may not be, getting the same type of PR that companies in Silicon Valley are.

I’d argue that you don’t have to run your company on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea in order to see the same effect.  We at Viddler, in my opinion, are doing some really great things, have big plans, and are doing it for far less than our competition.  However we seldom receive any “press” related to some of the moves we’re making.  One could easily argue that this is a good thing and that we can publicly operate in relative stealth mode – but sometimes it hurts more than it helps.

As a for instance: If I was the Technology Evangelist for a video-sharing site based out of Silicon Valley – do you think my post about what Flickr video means to the rest of the industry would have gone relatively unnoticed by the online press?  I doubt it.  Do I think my post should have gone unnoticed? Yes.  Because I didn’t say anything that any one else wasn’t already thinking.  Sometimes the weight of the words written by those in Silicon Valley are held in too high regard, and I wouldn’t want that to happen to us either.

At the end of the day, I believe Viddler can be successful with or without the PR that is generated mainly by “buzz”.  Buzz may indeed help to spread your message (hopefully the right one) but it definitely not a key to sustainability.  Sustainability comes from building a valuable product or service, wisdom in the marketplace, execution of vision, and “picking the low-hanging fruit” instead of leaving it behind.  If you don’t do that, it wouldn’t matter how many posts Mike Arrington writes about your company.