Comments on: MTV developing ‘hyper-programmed’ online verticals

By: Lucy

Lucy — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:32:09 +0000

Wow, thanks for the excellent information!

By: Matthew

Matthew — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 23:18:24 +0000

I agree with Safran 100% - it’s all about search. Companies are starting to think like some SEO guys now it appears in relation to conquering a vertical by going after a micro site just for a specific show. At any rate, the show may or may not make it, but by spinning up sites with dedicated content, the networks are in the long run helping themselves greatly in the world of search.

Like adm said too, it might not be quite all ready yet, but in the next few years, why can’t we navigate to the hyperprogrammed site right from our tv to watch the content, or the web. There should be no difference at that point. Any show, special or anything about the show could be related on the site, right from your Plasma or from your PC, all at our convenience

Just my .02

By: adm

adm — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:25:27 +0000

Good points, Steve. As it’s being used by MTV in this case, it seems like these new sites are largely new initiatives, tangentially related to actual shows, if at all. Since they are so completely unrelated to each other, it makes sense to me (in this case, at least) to have them at different URLs.

That said, I’m not sure it makes sense for ABC to direct everybody to desperatehousewives.com, lost.com, etc., and have each of those sites operating in “silos”. I don’t feel strongly whether it’s better to build the brand of the show or the network, but it’s an interesting topic for discussion.

By: Gert

Gert — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:12:12 +0000

Publishers should differentiate between navigators and destinations. Closed navigators (”master site”) needlessly keep the user captive, open navigators should point to any site relevant to the user niche.
Undoubtedly, MTV should be developing navigators alongside its 20 niche destinations. But those navigators should point to non-MTV sites as well (as newspaper movie guide pages, that point not just to the movies that happen to be released by the newspaper publisher’s parent, but to all movies and cinemas possibly available to the reader). Proper (open) navigators, targeted at specific niches, are a natural marketing space.

By: thedetroitchannel

thedetroitchannel — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:06:29 +0000

there’s that one guy who comes around here that’s got an idea how you’d market 20 different sites at once.

By: Safran

Safran — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:05:33 +0000

Fair enough to disagree. And good points. Let me expand on my point, not out of defense, but simply out of amplification.

People watch shows, not networks. The networks might try to convince you otherwise, but we TiVo our favorite shows. Nobody asks you what your favorite network is.

So if my job as a network honcho is to get as many pageviews as possible, I want to reach out to as many niche audiences as possible. I am no longer constrained by the “lowest common denomonator” mentality of television.

So, the Lost Remote network’s Fitness for 18-24 year old men show should be fitnessurl.com. Not Lostremote.com/network/shows/men/18.24/fitnessurl.html

The Lost Remote network’s Sports for 65 year old + women should be SportsWomenURL.com, not LostRemote.com/network/shows/olderwomen/sports.html.

Here’s another reason: SEARCH. People search out show names. They’re more likely to take a stab at a showname.com, too.

Over at WKRN.com, they have 18 blogs. They could have assigned each blog a subdomain. They didn’t. Each one has its own URL. And combined, those blogs now get more traffic than the “main site.”

You don’t need to sacrifice one for the other. For the people who need that main site, WKRN has all the blogs listed there, too. It’s not a one-or-the-other tradeoff.

Think in reverse: what good comes from steering someone to a master site? That’s not where they *want* to go. They want to go to the show’s site. You’re not promoting 20 sites, Fletch. Each show promotes its own site.

We make the mistake of thinking people want to visit our channels’ and our networks’ websites because, well, “they’re our channels’ and our networks’ websites!” Hooey. They want information. They want an easy RSS address. And they don’t want to have to dig to get it.

By: Irwin Fletcher

Irwin Fletcher — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 20:45:46 +0000

and, how on Earth do you market 20 different URLs…

we have enough trouble just marketing one correctly…

By: adm

adm — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 20:32:22 +0000

Hm, I’m not convinced yet, Steve. You could also ask, Why make users guess at a URL when they should be able to just go to a *well-organized* and well-designed master site and find what they are looking for. The new MTV.com is an unusable mess, so I’m not sure I want to take advice from these guys.