Brian Feener

I’m not even going to comment on how many times there was gratuitous product placement.  I get it. (”This pizza moment was brought to you by DiGiornio!”)

Not concerned with how many times they referred people to Twitter, even though I think that for corporate entities, the Twitter world is never going to be a cash cow.

I’m not even worried that there is a category called “Favorite Web Celeb.” (Samberg was robbed!!)

I’m just shocked that News Corp still cares about MySpace. They bought up space on every award winner’s super.  So that now I know not to go to the official Twilight site but myspace.com/twilight.

To me, this just confirms that MySpace is now an entity that’s more like YouTube than it is Facebook.  MySpace is a content management system with some profile features.  That’s it.  And with the full-blown corporate integration, my question is “why cheapen yourselves?”

Aren’t we at a point that the public can handle an “official site?”  Is it that hard to develop a widget to take comments on the official site?  What is MySpace giving people that can’t be found elsewhere?  It’s not a great social networking site (at least in U.S. terms).  It’s  not a great layout.  It’s not very friendly after you get more than 200 spammy comments…

The answer: It’s cheap and easy.  And we know what happens to things that are cheap and easy….

(Want a social network?  Get Ning. For all the controversy that surrounds him, 50 Cent uses this site for his ThisIs50 site and does a great job.)

There’s no easy solution to making a successful marketing campaign, but setting a goal of “generating buzz” isn’t going to guarantee any sort of victory in the end.   Buzz isn’t worth anything anymore.  There are too many things buzzing at the same time.

The Beatles had buzz in the 60’s.  There were three television channels.

The Vines had buzz in 2007.  And they’re not exactly tearing up the radio  right now.

In the end, the goal has to be converting to sales (registrations, whatever).  MySpace, Twitter, Facebook are nothing but the salesman knocking on the door to sell the vacuum.  Or a call from the telemarketer.   Sure, there may be an answer here and there, and a sale here and there, but is it really worth it?

There’s a reason that MySpace won… and then Facebook won… and now Twitter is winning.  This space is too hard to monetize on a consistent basis.  Attention is too short.  Things that were cool start being lame.  Tastes change.

Maybe I’m wrong.  Use the comments.

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