Can Large Corporations Buy "Cool?"

TobyToadstool writes "With the recent news that NBC and News Corp. will launch a YouTube rival, CNet asks: Can big corporations buy the zeitgeist or will they inevitably screw up? CNet calls the new wannabe 'Me Too Tube.' The article looks at companies trying to buy their way into user-generated content. Quoting: 'There is something incredibly boring and sad about giant companies who constantly chase the fleeing tailcoats of the latest Internet trends. Like the kid who [leaned] over and copied you in art class, News Corp./NBC are the archetypal corporation — lumbering and so very uncool.'"

Comments

This may be "uncool"...

[Dogtanian]

....but like them or not (and I don't), News Corporation own MySpace; and yes, they succeeded in buying "cool" there.

Re:This may be "uncool"...

[MBCook]

No they didn't, and that's the point. MySpace was already cool, they bought it and didn't really change it. They didn't MAKE it cool. And more importantly, they didn't compete against MySpace to do it. NBC is looking to try to make their clone cool, when YouTube already exists and gained much of it's early popularity though content they won't allow.

Let's not forget that Google tried to take on YouTube (in a way), and failed. They ended up buying YouTube.

NBC wants to make another YouTube, they have to compete against the original. And with the kind of restrictions that will likely be placed on it, I don't think they'll succeed at all.

They aren't starting something new in a new market. They aren't taking an existing small market and trying to expand it. They are trying to kill a very poplar and nice Goliath.

Re:This may be "uncool"...

[Seumas]

The title of the article was misleading. Buying cool versus making cool. Yes, in this case making cool is expensive and they are investing in it, as opposed to the average joe just starting up their own site that becomes cool.

That said, Youtube is not a small time site. It never was. You could say that the original creators did buy cool. One of the two guys is from an affluent family and I believe his wife's father (who is some big CEO somewhere or something like that) helped invest heavily in getting youtube off the ground. It frustrates me when people talk about Youtube like it is some phenom that started from the underground by some kid in his bedroom. It was started by a couple of older guys who had a lot of money and connections and the means to make something big. It's the difference between a Subway and a McDonald's . . . neither of them is your local mom and pop sandwich shop.

Of course, we can argue all day long as to whether MySpace is cool. I think most of us can agree that it certainly is not. Same for Youtube. Both are just places for teenage self-indulgent attention whores to whine about how hard life is, shake their asses and lipsynch on video as if the rest of the world cares.

It appears to me that all NBC is doing is creating a site where you can go to get their content. Of course, you know it's going to be restricted like crazy. But having a place to go and watch NBC content (other than Heroes, what the hell is there to watch?!) doesn't make it a youtube site. Youtube is Youtube because it has tens of millions of videos by tens of millions of wannabe stars who live for attention.

Newscorp didn't go out and create their own myspace. They bought myspace. NBC isn't going out there and buying youtube. They're trying to create their own. And it's not going to work. As bad as youtube sucks ass, the NBC version will be even worse.

NBC creating their own "youtube" will be like a poor kid who has to wear clothes that his mom made for him out of scraps, while all his friends and classmates go to school in brandname. It'll be the K-Mart and Value Village of video sites.

Re:This may be "uncool"...

[SatanicPuppy]

The problem is always the same: It's design by committee, by a bunch of people whose jobs are on the line.

Look at all the great applications, that just blew up out of nowhere. They're all started by people who are so amazingly fucking stoked about this idea! It's the coolest thing ever! It's going to change the world! I used to work with a guy who had that vibe, and it's like fricking crack, those people are just so into it, and amazed by it, and they want to use it, they want it to be like their dreams, and they think about it constantly.

Contrast that with a group of people whose sole goal is to try to take apart this successful thing, and pick out its success, and put that into their own thing so it'll be successful. It's like taking a famous piece of art and trying to pull the art out of it...They're looking for an ephemeral thing. They don't know why it's cool. They don't know what it is about it that makes it great.

The thing is, YouTube is hardly unique. The idea is a simple idea. There are a lot of other sites out there that allow you to host your videos for other people to see. But it has that thing...That ephemeral thing...Hell in this case, it could just be that it built a great user base out of daily show clips, and now those people are putting great stuff on YouTube, so it has great content...And it's by no means certain that another venture, no matter how well funded, will be able to tap that secret sauce. They may though. Never underestimate the power of a sufficiently large integer with a "$" in front of it.

Re:This may be "uncool"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, DogShit! Fucking dogs isn't "cool" either...

but you sure do a LOT of that!

You sick piece of shit!

Re:This may be "uncool"...

[BewireNomali]

I sort of agree.

You can buy cool. A giant company can even create cool. However, a press release that says big companies are going to create a competitor to something cool is not the way to do it. That's a decidedly staid way of doing business.

Imagine some uncool kid at school announcing that he was about to compete with the cool kid(s) for cool. That's absurd. The smarter thing to do is to throw smart money from behind the scenes at a seemingly grassroots/startup site - and manipulate the odds. Underhanded, yes. Evil, yes. But definitely cool.

Someone made the point of referring to kids that copy off you in school. there are two components - the initial theft, and the subsequent deception to those that matter. So the reference was to how sad it was to the kid who cheated on you in art class or whatever, but it's effective cheating if it works and you get what you want, i.e. good grade, or whatever.

In high school, I was good friends with a guy whose mother, a college professor, wrote high college applications. He had middling scores - but he got in everywhere he applied, including reaches. Is that an effective cheat? definitely. It made me wonder if I was the only kid who didn't have his parents write their stuff.

the mistake here was announcing it. Lame. Put the site out - throw cash at it and buy mindshare through effective BTS partnering - and then try to stay in the closet about it as long as you can (hopefully by spinning it off publicly or something before the press gets wind of the deception and kills ur userbase). Evil, yes. but way cool.

Like this company?

[shadow349]

The article looks at companies trying to buy their way into user-generated content. You mean like this company?

Cool?

[naoursla]

Is YouTube cool? I thought it was just a convenient place to post and watch videos.

The NBC/News Corp. site will be a convenient place to watch NBC and FOX television shows. Who cares if it is "cool"?

Of course they can, corporation != uncool

[Dynedain]

Of course they can, just look at Apple.

They have an uncanny ability to enter an established market with a "cool" product and trample over the competition.

Any company that tries to be cool isn't cool

[soft_guy]

In fact, companies aren't really cool. At best, companies make good products and get a good reputation and then people decide that their products are cool (like Apple), but if you actively chase being "cool", then you end up looking foolish.

Re:Any company that tries to be cool isn't cool

[Anonymous Coward]

So, in other words, cool works for companies just like cool works for people?

Re:Any company that tries to be cool isn't cool

[monoqlith]

I disagree. Companies can try to be cool and earn the reputation for being cool. Apple is the perfect example. They just know what the fuck they are doing, so it doesn't wind up a tragic, sorry mess.

When a corporation that doesn't know what the fuck it is doing tries to be cool, it ends up making a disaster of a product. And it's not because they tried to be cool. It's because they tried and didn't know what the fuck they were doing.

Again, Apple and Google succeed at being cool because they are operated by people who know how to create that image. On the other hand, Microsoft, Exxon-Mobile, Walmart, et al. fail miserably, because they apparently have MBAs running their creative departments. They don't do shabbily, obviously, but their market appeal is more based on a utilitarian need rather than an aesthetic want.

Now, one can make the argument that a corporation, as an entity, is intrinsically uncool, but that's all a matter of ideological persuasion. I'm merely talking empirically about what the broad appeal of these corporations seems to be.

They don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Media outlets don't care if it is as successful as You-Tube or not. All they care about is keeping their content off of You-Tube. It only needs to be a success in that manner; meaning that it succeeds in if people want their content, they'll go to their site where ad revenue can be recouped, not somewhere else.

Only way it "fails" is if people still don't want to access the content in that manner, not whether it obtains some vauge "coolness" factor.

It is and never was a direct competitor. Only the talking heads in the media claimed such.

It's best to shrug this kinda thing off

[east coast]

In all honesty, who cares what CNet (or anyone else) has to say about these new sites? Does this mean that everyone who put up a website for any reason after the first one went up should have been labeled "My Website Too"?

Once again we're going to see a catfight over technology being brought down to the same level as fashion.

My advice for real geeks: shrug it off. Or do you want to be part of what is slightly above a Montel Williams show?

They must become cool.

[twitter]

Those that do not will die.

This is very difficult for companies that are used to filtering your culture and promoting only a small subset, which they consider exemplary. That kind of cynicism can be seen back as far as the Beatles "Hard Day's Night" where a company follows the advice of their "resident teenager". In a world where original content can and does come from everywhere, big companies are going to have to get used to being one of many equal players. Those that do will be cool by definition. Those that don't will increasingly become keepers of legacy and irrelevant entertainment, kind of like museums.

Cool is like stupid. Stupid is what stupid does. Both become apparent in time.

Wake up to a little bit reality here pal

[unity100]

slashdot is something much more bigger than you think.

you are probably thinking that who are hanging out in slashdot are a bunch of long haired geeks in their mom's basement and half lit university labs. along with a couple of linux, ms and nasa junkies ...

reality is that /. is the place where majority of people who build the web and tech world hang out - not excluding high level techies, executives, prominent tech pioneers, industry celebrities, very high profile personas, ages-old black & white hat hackers with long list of deeds behind them. ah, also a number of politicians.

not to mention countless hordes of developers & programmers, whose collective mind decides the fate of programming languages, numerous software and hardware products, and even ideas, for the future.

ever wondered why there are so many anonymous posts in slashdot ? only for trolling better ? afraid of persecution ?

think again.

Google did

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is something incredibly boring and sad about giant companies who constantly chase the fleeing tailcoats of the latest Internet trends"

Just like how Google bought YouTube

"Can Large Corporations Buy 'Cool?'"

We all know Google did

Nothing can buy cool.

[E-Sabbath]

They can't buy cool. They _can_ earn it. IBM has gone a complete and total change over the last 20 years. Nintendo has over the last four.

The coolness has to come from within.

If their attempts at viral marketing are anything.

[Channard]

.. to go by, no. Remember how badly All I want for Christmas is a PSP was? I don't think they'll ever get any better at it than that.

Re:The Secret to Being Cool

[moochfish]

Yeah, because that worked...

Brand equity

[Anonymous Meoward]

It's possible, but very rare. Whenever a company is acquired, the acquirer's marketing department sets the tone from that point onward. If they're smart, they understand that they bought a certain level of brand equity, which is nothing more than the power of the acquired company's brands in the minds that make up the marketplace. They might also understand that this mysterious quantity is very hard to regain once it has been depleted. Assuming of course, that they care.

Take the acquisition of Rolling Rock Beer by Anheuser-Busch as an example. RR had a brand that capitalized on its niche quality: We're smaller, but better, and we cater to the more discriminating lager drinker. (Whether or not that's true is debatable, I know, but that's the idea.) Add a little mystery like the "33" on the bottle, and some word of mouth (the branding equivalent of gold bullion), and you have a successful product over time. Rolling Rock is then perceived as "cool".

So, A-B buys Rolling Rock. What do they do? They immediately try to sell it like Bud. Quirky but uninspired ads, flashy web site, increasing the scale of operations, closing the original brewery (now that hurts!), and so on. They figure hey, beer is beer, and we know how to sell it, right?

Wrong.

Most Rolling Rock drinkers by the stuff because IT ISN'T BUD, for starters. And the brand equity -- what marketing types christen that "cool" factor -- is being slowly but surely eroded.

So it's not clear how Anheuser will enhance the brand, to try to regain lost ground. Or maybe they're just out to eliminate a competitor, and shaft the consumer in the process by wiping out one more choice. But maintaining (let alone growing) brand equity is a marketing black art, and one that most larger companies stumble over once they acquire another operation.