Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is a hothead, but he didn't get to be an Internet billionaire by being stupid about media. Today on his blog, he explains his theory of why newspapers are stupid to have blogs -- or to be more specific, why newspapers are foolish to call their blogs "blogs." It's a pretty astute judgment, I think. Excerpt:
Never, ever, ever consider something that any literate human being with Internet access can create in under 5 minutes to be a product or service that can in any way differentiate your business.If you feel that you must offer this product or service as a means of "keeping up" or as a checklist item that you must have for competitive reasons, then do everything possible to brand the product or service in a manner that segregates it from the masses. Perception is reality. If you can leverage your existing brand to create the perception that yours is different from the masses in some meaningful way, then you must do everything you can to do so.
Cuban argues that when a newspaper markets its blog as a "blog," it devalues the authority of the information there. That is, rather than giving the blog more cachet because it comes with the newspaper brand name, it devalues the newspaper brand name, because people who read blogs don't expect a blog to carry the same level of authority as a newspaper.
If I worked for the NY Times, or any other media company with any level of brand equity, I would have done everything possible to define the section of our website that offers ongoing [reporting] as anything other than a blog. I would make up a name. Call it say.....RealTime Reporting.RealTime Yankees: Catch in depth, up to the minute reports on the Yankees as only the NY Times world re known staff of Sports Writers can bring up
RealTime City Hall: The NY Times has more journalists covering the action at City Hall than anyone else. Catch in depth, up to the minute reports on NYC politics as as only the NY Times can.
Brand it RealTime. Brand it anything. Make sure you market it as having the characteristics unique to your staff that NO ONE ELSE on the net can bring.
if I were marketing for them, I would be doing everything I could to send the message that "The NY Times does not have blogs, we have Real Time Reports from the most qualified reporters in the world. Like blogs we post continuously , 24x7x365 to keep you up to speed, unlike blogs, we have the highest level of journalistic standards that we adhere to. A copy of which is available at....." You get the picture.
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The internet gives ordinary people the means to feel that they can decide for themselves what is newsworthy, whether they actually can or not...
Of course, since the 24 hour 'news' channels have done so well in choosing for us. Forgive me if I forgo such newsworthy coverage as the Spitzer motorcade winding through traffic.
I enjoyed and was impressed by the perceptive observations in the previous comments.
However, having said that, none of them gets me past one salient point:
Mark Cuban gives me hives. I swear, when he's on SportCenter I feel like I need an epi-pen.
I'll put it this: Cuban misses the point. Newspapers are caught up in a negative feedback loop: falling readership results in staff cuts and more caution which results in falling readership which results in less money for newspapering. In addition, newspapers (along with the other parts of the establishment press) have got caught up in seeing themselves as the arbiters of what is true and what isn't, without the (neccessary) willingness to stick with the truth, even if that is merely the truth as reporters and editors see it. (What you wind up with is a weak tea that won't be criticized by other members of the press as untrue, even when the actual facts suggest that pars of the narrative (or the whole narrative) are in fact, wildly wrong.)
Blogs contain content, they are not the content itself - they're a method of delivery. And blogs are (sometimes) delivering what newspapers (and cable news!) have ceased to deliver. Newspapers would have a problem whether they had blogs or not, regardless of what they called the delivery system. The problem *I* have seen with newspapers having blogs is that those blogs are often no better and usually worse than non-newspaper blogs (even with duly noted exceptions). You can't differentiate a product if your product is merely par (or worse than) competing products.
After all, the NYT attempted Cuban's method with TimeSelect and it bombed pretty badly. All it did was emphasize that the content wasn't as good as the available 'free' content.
Cuban's remarks remind of various software (and hardware) vendors over the years, who got into a leading position in the market by having a better product, then slacked off, got beaten by the competition, started losing market share, and then tried to fix the problem with new marketing schemes. (Or they tried to resell the same old stuff in multiple new forms of shiny packaging; see Netware.) Those schemes never ever worked.
To me, the media markets look like the marsupials in the early phases of dealing with being outcompeted by an invasive species: in really bad trouble and no clue as to how to fix it.
max
['Some species survived, many did not.']
poorly-written half-baked opinions and commentary from people who aren't professional journalists . . . but . . . but you say that like it's a BAD thing! ; ) Cuban is completely missing the point. People don't want an official seal of approval on their blog reading, nor do they want a brand to remind them that they are the objects of obtrusive and relentless marketing devices. Those who read blogs enjoy wallowing in the data stream and enjoying the illusion that it is unfiltered. It's the sediment in the bottom of the bottle that makes it tasty.
a lot of media are playing the role of the Catholic Church in not understanding the appeal of having control of the information oneself and the declining appeal of authority. Good point, Peter, and funny as well! Cuban's idea of officially-approved bloggery has all the reading appeal of church-approved tracts off the rack in the vestibule.
"It is kind of serving the same purpose as the Reformation which democratized religion and a lot of media are playing the role of the Catholic Church in not understanding the appeal of having control of the information oneself and the declining appeal of authority." Peter
People who want "democratized religion", "control of the information" and who have disdain for authority, generally are not members of the Catholic Church; they are liberal Protestants and liberal Jews who want to customize the information that informs their spirituality without worrying about authority. "Want birth control, abortion, same-sex unions? No problem; the information we dispense, unlike the papists, is malleable."
By taking an uncalled for shot at the RCC, Peter, you fatally diluted your message about Cuban. He is totally about himself and money, and damn the consequences.
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