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Walmart Tries to Emulate MySpace
mattsucks writes to tell us that according to AdAge, retail behemoth WalMart is trying desperately to target the MySpace demographic with a new, and highly sanitized, site designed to appeal to teens. From the article: "It's a quasi-social-networking site for teens designed to allow them to 'express their individuality,' yet it screens all content, tells parents their kids have joined and forbids users to e-mail one another. Oh, and it calls users 'hubsters' -- a twist on hipsters that proves just how painfully uncool it is to try to be cool."
I didn't think it was humanly possible, but I think I like Myspace better.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Oh, and it calls users 'hubsters' -- a twist on hipsters
Actually I don't think of "hip" when I hear that name. If you ask me they got the name from "hub" as in a center point for many connections and a way for directing connections out in other directions. Which makes sense for a social networking site, but the fact that Wal-Mart isn't allowing users to contact each other pretty much just means theres no "outgoing" really. How is this social networking again, if you can't talk to other people?
Screened content? Check
Parents notified? Check
Oooh, no email? Check
Yep, hits all my buttons.
Unfortunately, I'm a parent, with teenagers. I'd have as much success leading them to this site as I have getting them to tidy their rooms, speak respectfully to their elders and cook dinner occasionally.
TRIES. T-R-I-E-S. The only acceptable time for "trys" is when you're on the way to "tryst". I've never really gotten heated about grammar in articles, but it's IN BOLD PRINT!! C'mon!
/late
//drunk
///please don't hurt my karma
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
A much better idea would have been to create a subsidiary and do it through them. The association with a company that works on a "mass" basis somewhat works against the desire to "express one's individuality".
Actually, if I did want to express my individuality (which I don't, because I don't have low self-esteem), I would prefer to make my own site. That's a lot more individualistic than being part of a large mass of people on a big site.
see a Text Widget
If that site were any more out of touch it would download via Senator Ted Stevens' tube based internet.
I think Walmart's been taking marketing advise from Steven Colbert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PbJJUy1KD8
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Oh.... My... Gawd....
I have finally seen it: The Worst Idea On The Internet.
I always thought it would come from Bush, Ballmer, or Bin Laden, but congratulations, Wal-Mart, you've won! Yes, because we all know that teens are clamoring to be associated with that haven of cool, the Wal-Mart Supercenter! They'll hang out all day in chat rooms monitored by a giant smiley face that threatens to "Roll back trolls"! They want clever, yet unoffensive nicknames like 'The gr33tr' and 'mop_guy_99'! They'll argue all day over whether they should get the 80-pack of Charmin or the 120-pack of generic brand toilet paper!
What teen wouldn't mind saying in the halls of their school, "I'll see ya on The HUB, dude!" "ya, see ya later, HUBSTER"?! (tragically these two kids were beaten to death with Abercrombie & Fitch merchandise a few moments later)
Seriously, I can imagine the Gap or Abercrombie, maybe even Starbucks doing this, but.... Wal-mart?!?!
I can only imagine that the kind of teen that would use Wal-mart for a social networking service are the ones who go there barefoot and pregnant because they thought Saran Wrap was a contraceptive. That and the guys who argue over Coors Lite vs. Miller Lite.
May Cthulu help us all.
I can't believe how naive these failed-meme-launching marketing execs keep proving themselves to be.
There are 95 million myspace users and every week another million sign up. There aren't enough additional people in the Internet-using public in america to even come close to competing with myspace. They'd be lucky to pick up a couple hundred thousand users. And why would you use this instead of myspace?
This isn't intended to compete with myspace. It's just another marketing disaster.
"You've just become a member of one of the coolest cliques on the net. Be sure to spam your friends...
Wait for the goatse... Meanwhile I'll be uploading random copyright infringing content via tor... This must be good for something.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I've looked at MySpace but I just don't get it. It just full of crap. Perhaps I'm too old.
Can anyone point out a page that's actually worth looking at?
The website, content and contest are just a marketing campaign and a pathetic one at that. Kids "customize" their page and upload pictures and video (pending approval from the Walmart mandarins, of course). The entire exercise is directed at getting kids to shop for their fall back to school wardrobe at Wally World as opposed to Target, who apparently have the budget teen fashion market pretty much buttoned up (no pun intended). It's not a blog or even a blog with training wheels, but just a way for kids to yap to their friends about this "cool new web site" and act as shills for Walmart.
from the FAQ:
WHO'S BEHIND THIS GENIUS WEB DESTINATION?
The guys from Wal-Mart and Sony® teamed up to bring you all the sweet stuff you'll find on the HUB!
'nuff said.
This is embarrassing. This is like the federal government starting a myspace rival.
Just wait. Walmart will realize their mistake and allow kids to do things like add hot pink text on top of bright orange, move the text boxes all over the fucking page and feature looping, inane, impossible to shut off Walmart-friendly music that highlights all the best boy bands Walmart has to offer.
Heres a link http://schoolyourway.walmart.com/index.php/
I think this internet thing sounds like a good idea
This is a really bad advertising ploy and a source of future labor for anyone who signs up. It is an interesting idea though, it would have worked better if they just created a seperate deparment/company to accomplish roughly the same goal, kind of what disney did with miramax. They could have just set up the site with all walmart advertisments. or just go buy the advertisments on myspace...or myspace itself. Corporate takeovers on the internet...
On the other hand, it could be worse.
They could have called the users: "Associates"
& the site: "The Wall"
Aside from the entertainment of the mockery Wally World so richly deserves, this is a pretty clear example of the level of desperation the idiot mainstream marketers are experiencing. They, like the failed entertainment retailers, are coming to realize that they can't control the world anymore.
So, they are trying to take on this runaway train we call the web. Trouble is, they have been stuck in their little castles for so long, they no longer get the new world that is. Because they do not get it, they attempt a cheesy imitation of such.
The stunning irony here is that they actually believed this rip off would be found credible and there was no one within their ranks who was able to tell them how idiotic they looked.
This isn't the loss of a battle -- this is a total loss of the war.
Mod me up, mod me down, flame me, praise me -- whatever you do, you help prove I exist...
Baloo, I'm sending you a walmart friend invite. Keep in mind that we're should all register underage. Use a real secondary email address to be your "parent's address. Etc.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Of the founder of a space opera ufo nut cult, alas Hubbard is written with a double 'b'.
Maybe Walmart just didn't want to get sued..
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Speaking of MySpace, are we picking up on dogshit for education? 81 comments as of this post and the headline is still an eyesore.
Fix, editors, fix! Edit, editors, edit!
Well, I've been out of the country and away from my friends for a few months.
I can't go egging houses, but tonight, yeeeess tonight we see what we can get past the censors at WalMart.
Will post updates here.
I should probably shave first.
Wal*Mart is simply doing this to gain valuable insight into the "popular" things teenagers think about. To do so is to "know your market," which in the ends gains them dollars. They don't give a damn about competing with MySpace - this is simply free focus group fodder. If they even get a few hundred users to post a few blog posts with useful marketing information, they'll be happy.
Marketing data is what they are looking for.
I counted the number of times the girls said "cute" and "like" in that front page video. Here's the rough numbers:
cute: 11111111
like: 111111111111
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
They can't find you online? That's probably only because they aren't computer literate. (Not to diss your parents, I'm sure they are very fine people) Once I get kids, I'm pretty sure that I'll find them online. If only because I handle the firewall/router here and can log exactly what they visit. Even if I didn't, it very feasible to simple get on their computer and check their browser history. (Kids don't get Admin - Fuck I don't give Admin to myself for mundane tasks)
You see, the problem is not that parents don't want to know, it is because they do not know how to. For the future generation of kids this is going to change, because we grew up with computers. Actually, with the dumbing down of computers these days, it is very well possible that we will know more about computers than our kids will.
It's a bit like cellphones: I know people that pay the cellphone bills for their -13year olds. They complain that they call too much and don't know what to do. They still want the kids to have a cellphone in "case of an emergency". What most people don't know is that you can lock the numbers you want to the SIM card (or cellphone) and it won't allow other numbers to be called. People don't know. I do, my kids are going to have a hell of a time to beat me in technology. (Same way I did with my dad, because he was well informed too. I beat him, but it took its time)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Emulate myspace?!?!? Slashdot is really missing a story-click headline opportunity here. Walmart is launching a mySpace-KILLER!
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I'm not a big MySpace user, but a lot of my (adult) friends use it quite a lot for the "Music" section. By being attached to a big media company they've managed to get an official presence for almost every major label and band on that site, and they also allow unsigned/smaller bands to register themselves. My friends trawl around the music section looking for new bands, and the group of my friends that are in a band of their own use it to promote said band to fans of similar bands.
The pure social networking bit is mostly for the kids, but the music section seems to attract young adults a lot more.
From the Article: The Columbus teen doubts she'll submit a video or enter the contests because "it, like, takes a lot of time, and it's not very likely you'll win."
That's the smartest thing I've heard in a while. Take out the slang "like" and this 14 year old girl analyzed, prioritized and made an executive-level decision.
Echoing SNL's insight that WalMart reversed its decision to sell birth control pills when it throught about who shops at WalMart, do we _really_ want people who would join this site uncensored and emailing each other?
http://neverendinglists.blogspot.com/2006/07/five- oddities-from-wal-marts-hub.html
1. This site brought to you by Exxon Mobil
This one weirded me out, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation: all images are hosted at exxonmobil.download.akamai.com. Paranoid meter now officially ON.
This is going to fail and fail badly. For one simple reason anyone who still remembers there childhood knows: Nothing specifically designed to appeal to teens ever does.
Teens are way, way, way more interested in stuff made for adults.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Painful, but I watched all four little videos. Did anyone notice that not one of them (remember slogan is "School My Way") mentioned, um ... school? Except that singer said something along the lines of "I sing instead of doing my homework". Does the word 'school' have some strange usage that I wasn't previously aware of?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I worked a stint in JWT's (nee J. Walter Thompson) Interactive Division on Madison Avenue. Creative Directors would come down with retarded ideas like this all the time two weeks before launching the TV and Print components of an integrated campaign and demand we pull something the size of MySpace out of our asses, with such detailed instructions as, "we want something really hip and cool that's 'viral.'" They asked for the same thing in the same words so often that we had a canned spiel explaining that that word, 'viral,' does not mean what they think it means. Then the marketroids in the Account Department would further retard the Creative Directors' stunted concepts with their lunacy, and finally both the Agency and Client legal departments would do their review of the online component and vomit all over it, touch up the corners with their own feces, and the final product would look exactly like this opt-out message.
It's pitiful, laughable, and annoying; but on the bright side it does permanently preclude a true corporate takeover of the internet's mindspace because even though individuals at corporations understand that they don't get it, the very nature of a corporation makes it impossible that the corporation ever will.
Corporate America/World retards human progress, not promotes it.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.