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Loading ...Everyone wants to be able to grab a bit of the web action these days, and who can blame them for trying? Efforts are not always successful as happened with NBC 600 million dollar purchase of iVillage last year (”Making a Clean Start In a House of Mixed Media” New York Times). Some of NBC’s efforts to drive people to the site even ended up lowering the amount of traffic. “iVillage Live” was a show that invited viewers to chat online about the topics being discussed on television. It resulted in a month to month decrease of visitors to the site. NBC will not be deterred and is revamping and re-launching iVillage live in the near future.
Why do I personally think this is ridiculous? It’s actually the combined problem of America’s house’s floor plans and laptop vs. desktop. As NBC is well aware the target audience for iVillage (and therefore for iVillage Live as well) are mature women, mothers, domestic engineers in many cases. When these women are watching television I am sure they are taking the opportunity to multitask in many ways (I imagine running on a treadmill, preparing food, resting legs, etc.) and needless to say these activities are not usually done in a room with a laptop or desktop at hand. The average American household has several television sets: one in the den, another in the kitchen, in each and every person’s bedroom perhaps. In most cases however the household’s computer is not in the den, or the kitchen but in an office (or bedroom). iVillage Live being a daytime show I would argue that it would be viewed in the kitchen or den, and as a short break during a busy day which would not allow time to grab a laptop unplug it and move it to the appropriate viewing location to simultaneously chat. That is to say IF the family even has a laptop. If they do not, who ever heard of facing a desktop so as to facilitate television viewing (NOT feng shui to say the least).
The point being, no matter how much they revamp the show, no matter how many celebrities NBC gets to come on because of their new location in Chicago they will only be causing the site traffic to suffer. If a woman is going to take some time out of the day to tune into something iVillage related, I doubt she will do so on two different occasions on the same day. Agree or disagree? Is NBC wasting its time with the new show or not? I know I hate sitting at the TV with a steamy laptop in my lap (despite the name, they are really not meant to sit there…especially for boys).
Filed under: Online Communities, Social Networks, Social Utilities, Television, Virtual Communities
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This is ridiculous. To say people won’t go to a site because of a tv show is insane.
Ideally they should compliement each other.
Haha, yes ridiculous indeed. However, if you read the article it seems that just that happened last year.
I think NBC is definitely wasting time. They overbid for the site in the first place, big time.
They jumped the shark. Everyone wants to be hip and cutting edge in the online space, but the masses are not ready to be watching television and hooked into their computers at the same time.
At the end of the day, who cares what sally in east bumblefuck says on the boards of ivillage anyway. It is stupid how they include viewer questions and perspective.
The biggest problem with iVillage is that it is stuck in Web 1.5. Boards and forums and so forth really aren’t web 2.0, actually, because they are hierarchical and each topic is stuck in its own silo. So, even though iVillage may be a community, a deep and powerful one to boot, it isn’t prepared to handle huge influxes of new people and it doesn’t really offer enough as it stands.
The gifts are not good enough for those people who are just a little casual and a little curious.
I think using the message board format is a baby step of sorts. Outside politics, tech, and a portions of social networks blog is still a word and activity thats shrouded in mystery. What is it? How do you do it? How do you evaluate it? What good is blogging for me?
Is there a risk that web 1.5 adopters will like that space better than web 2.0? Yes. Is this a good thing. Maybe. I think it will help ensure that web 2.0 is really an optimal choice and the folks that show up–or at least a greater portion of them–have come to play, conversate, and participate and they haven’t ended up there by default.
For folks that are stuck supping at the table of mass media offerings, perhaps this will provide more entertaining and conversational. Perhaps it will even provide a broader consensus behind more robust web infrastructure (aka more free wifi)
People aren’t ready to watch TV at the same time as they are working on their computer. I think this is absolutely correct. Effectively that means that their target audience is folks with laptops and wifi, which although growing, may not be the same folks that are tuning into television. I think these people are hoping off the grid a bit, even if they might be returning for shows like The Daily Show and an occassional dip into Family Guy and American Idol reality-esque TV.
Is this a fair test to if this is a good model. I’m not sure–my guess is the people will vote with their eyeballs and mouse-clicks. Certainly its instructive and illuminating. To be honest, I do worry that this is a way for mass media to coopt some of what we think is our conversational space and that scares the bejesus or whatever out of me. I may be crazy about all of the above, but thanks for the convo!
Personally, the problem with blogs is that blogs are Web 1.5 as well. Blogs are pretty long-in-the-tooth. RSS is web 2.0 but the blog with its comments and so forth is really just web 1.5.
The Well and The Meta Network is Web .5. Why? Well, because it is a gated community. If you don’t feed the blogosphere, then you’re being irrelevant.
I am wondering if maybe Pownce, http://www.pownce.com, took a step back? What do you think?
I haven’t tried Pownce out yet (although the extremely cute name is very tempting) but here is my theory. It’s a step back, definitely in the broader development of the web community however it might be a step forward in a different direction. Remember my New Zealander friend the one who was sick of being contacted by people he didn’t care to here from? Perhaps Pownce thinks that they are providing a service to those very busy and more private people.