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Chuck Ross

OMG: We Share With You the Latest, Hottest Social Networking Site. We Wish You’d Keep It on the Down Low, But We Realize Most of You Won’t

Oct 4, 2010

We are giddy with excitement today. We just saw a movie and think that, with your help, we’ve come up with something that might strike a chord with you. At least we think so.

We rarely come up with something, quite frankly, this clever. We feel that this is stronger than dirt and allows you to have it YOUR way.

This idea really is a silly millimeter longer. It’s good to the last drop. It’s ready when you are.

Once you hear it, it’ll be like plop, plop, fizz, fizz, and you’ll be feeling better. It’s the breakfast of champions.

OK, OK, enough with the hype already. Here goes:

The movie we just saw was “Social Network.” And, within the first five minutes of watching the movie—which we really liked by the way—this idea occurred to us—so we’re not spoiling anything here.

You know the way most of us tried a bunch of different search engines until Google came along, and how most us stopped after that and now Google is the de facto standard in search engines? (Sorry, Bing.)

Similarly, we all tried Friendster and My Space as our social networks, but then along came Facebook, and now, like Google, it’s the one most of us use.

Well, after seeing “Social Network,” we are adding a tagline to TVWeek.com that we think will resonate with a lot of you. It follows one of our basic rules—the Ray Kroc idea of KISS—Keep It Simple Stupid.

TVWeek: The social network NOT founded by an asshole.

Well?

TVWeek: The social network NOT founded by an asshole.

Are you lovin’ it yet?

Come on. You know how liberating it is. Yes, you CAN have a social network your way. This allows you to work hard AND fly right. Live better. Expect more. Be all you can be.

TVWeek: The social network NOT founded by an asshole.

Does this say it all or what?

We’re guessing that more than a few of you will want to share this with your family and friends and within a short period of time a number of you will be leaving Facebook for TVWeek.com.

However, others of you may have a moment’s hesitation as you say to yourself: Hmm. That’s nice, but TVWeek isn’t a social networking site.

My boss also mentioned this to me, and yes, even I was flummoxed for a few moments.

But then I figured it out. Take this example. We ran a terrific story not too long ago linking to a piece about some of the intricacies of the Comcast-NBCU deal. And one of the comments was (this is a direct quote): “Awesome, Good list ans stuff. Look here for false Breitlings.”

Seems to me, once this commenter knew about our new slogan and realized that we were a social network site as well—and, importantly, not one founded by an asshole—he or she probably would have easily added, “Ans if your going out, we have Viagra.”

Or the time someone wrote the following comment about one of my blog entries:

“What a waste of time. Always knew you wouldn’t amount to much, but do you have to prove it to everybody in public and waste their time as well?”

It was signed “Mother (and if you don’t believe I’m really your Mother, remember when your cousin Markie accidently stuck his foot into your birthday cake when you were eight-years-old?).”

Yeah, right, like a lot of other people couldn’t have found that out as well. Whoever you really are, if you had realized at the time that this was really a social network site—and one, importantly, not founded by an asshole—you could have added, “I’ll be at Aunt Marge’s later, playing mahjong—call me.”

We think the possibilities are endless. Sure, on one hand we realize that this new tagline makes us so kool that we wish you’d keep it on the down low, but we can’t stop you from tweeting your friends this news. 

So if our site’s down later today, we thank you in advance as it’ll be because we’ll be overwhelmed by the traffic you and your friends are generating to us as you make us the latest word in social media.

What more can we say? We know we’re TVWeek. That we’re between love and madness. The pause that refreshes.

Just do it, with glee.#

7 Comments

  1. Ummm, what?

  2. I’ll never get back the minutes and a half it took me to read this waste of space. What a shame.

  3. Ahh…………..is it April 1st ?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  4. What’s your point. That the Column WAS written by an A*******??

  5. The new Zune browser is surprisingly good, but not as good as the iPod’s. It works well, but isn’t as fast as Safari, and has a clunkier interface. If you occasionally plan on using the web browser that’s not an issue, but if you’re planning to browse the web alot from your PMP then the iPod’s larger screen and better browser may be important.

  6. I loathe comments on stories. I think they’re lowering the discourse in this country.
    With that said, however, I’ll admit… I seriously don’t understand what’s happening here, in this story, at all.
    Thanks.

  7. “Programmers and marketing people know how to get into your subconscious – they spend millions of dollars researching colors, shapes, designs, symbols, that affect your preferences, and they can make you feel warm, trusting, like buying. They can manipulate you.”
    Richard Hatch

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