The house that Leo built may still stand but its foundation
continues to erode. An exodus of
hosts, ever increasing ads and unstable
schedule all chip away at it. Then
there's the shameless self-promotion of swag but that much at least can be
excused.
After all, what red-blooded tech geek wouldn't want a
genuine, limited edition, TWIT branded T-shirt, Leo Bobble head or spoon cup.
Spoon cup??
Don't ask...
Hey, promotion is excusable even necessary, building a
network around it, however, is not.
Unless you're Home Shopping Network or QVC that is...
If you're not charging a subscription fee you're going to
have ads unless you enjoy podcasting in a vacuum. Somebody's got to pay the bills after all and
a few seconds of sales pitch seem a fair trade for good content that's
otherwise free.
Laporte has been adamant in the past that ads on TWIT would
always be relevant to the network's tech focus.
Unfortunately, history has shown that assertion to ring increasingly
hollow.
Remember Ice.com?
They're an online jewelry retailer that had thousands of techies
scratching their heads when they showed up as an advertiser on TWIT around
Valentine's day 2011. From This Week in Tech to NFSW it was painful to watch
hosts (including Laporte) try to make
the topic of tennis bracelets interesting
to Iphone jail breakers.
Nobody would argue that Gazelle.com, lynda.com and proXPN
didn't live up to Laporte's carefully curated advertising policy. It was a mutually beneficial relationship
that put willing eyes on relevant products.
It seems that policy has been increasingly under assault,
however, as the network moves away from
its traditional fan base. Take a look at
the newest members of the TWIT advertiser parade for proof...
ZipRecruiter, an
online job posting service. Great for
stuffing job seeker's spam email boxes...
NatureBox, which
for only $20 a month gets you into the fruit and nut club.
Personal Capital, which
might as well be Charles Schwab or
any other investment firm with an online presence (meaning everybody)
Prosper, which is
peer to peer lending or in other words the online equivalent to a hard money
lender (otherwise known as a loan shark)
To be fair, it's just a few minutes annoyance out of
otherwise good content except that what constitutes good content is also coming
into question.
I'm not talking about Ham Nation or Floss Weekly. Their relevant albeit narrow fan base is in
sync with TWIT's original vision.
But what about a show about marketing?
Advertisers are bad enough but a show about
advertising?
Never!
Except...
Coming soon to an Itunes playlist near you is TWIT's newest
podcast...
The pitch is this...
" Marketing Mavericks covers the
intersection of marketing and tech. Each week, Tonya Hall interviews top
marketing professionals to discuss case studies, communication strategies, and
brand insights on social media, trends, and analytics."
Read that again, especially the part about interviewing "top
marketing professionals." Overflowing
spam folders, popup ads and pre-rolls on Youtube videos all lead back to
them. The very antithesis of the TWIT
mantra now finds a loving embrace.
One could hope that the TWIT chat rooms would rail against
such an assault on their sensibilities but ever present (and at times draconian) moderators would quickly dismiss
detractors.
So much for feedback driven content...
If there were any justice in the world such programming
would find a short lifespan on the network but don't count on it.
It's far more likely that as TWIT content becomes a more
advertiser friendly shade of beige, shows like Marketing Mavericks will become the norm. Expand
your audience and expand your reach. The
content becomes diluted but fortunes will rise.
At least that's the hope...
TWIT still has some good content but it's increasingly
becoming more like a Netflix subscription. That contradicts Laporte's stated wish for more live viewership
of TWIT. Fans of specific shows are migrating to downloads over live
broadcasts while devotees of former hosts leave the network entirely.
Numbers don't lie and while TWIT stalwarts like This Week in Tech and Security now remain in the top 10 Tech
podcasts on ITunes, new shows like The revamped Tech News Today and Tech News
2Nite are nowhere to be found.
All this kind of flies in the face of the new 24/7 news
mantra doesn't it?
Not to worry, everybody just accepts irrelevant content as a
fact of life these days...
After all, look how well it's worked for Facebook! Except that
even Facebook has seen a decline
in new eyeballs as its focus on ad revenue has increasingly invaded the privacy
of its user base. When the novelty wore
off they began to trade on their users instead of their users content. A strategy that's led them to a bizarre move to Virtual
Reality.
That's left onlookers scratching their heads...hmm...sound
familiar?
Facebook is all about the money and its reputation not to mention its fortunes have increasingly suffered
because of it.
There's a lesson in there somewhere...
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