Friday
Oct312008
BET'S Sinister Plot to Enslave Black Bloggers SPOOKY ...But True
Friday, October 31, 2008 at 9:46AM The Blogmother
Long post+little time=typos... GET OVER IT.
Okay, the first part of this post is somewhat wonky, but I promise you that you'll get my requisite BET jabs at the end of the post. Okay, so it's coming, but I had to give you background first before you can get your payoff.
Y'all know I a big advocate of Black bloggers, even those I don't agree with. I think at this stage of the development of new media, we rise, fall, sink and swim, together. Well, yesterday I did some blog-related travel and made a pit stop at an excellent conference put on by the folks at Target Market News. Mr. Smikle doesn't like bloggers or social networks very much, he said we're "anarchy", but he threw a heck of a conference. Not because of the free beverages and hot cider in the lobby, but because of the people he is able to get in the room.
I sat next to Jacque Reid and an executive from Hewlett Packard. I had a blast at the back of the room. I only managed to heckle one presenter who said that Black-oriented websites have STATIC content? He cited for his reference BET.com and BlackAmericaWeb. I was of course indignant because y'all will put out an ABP, text messages, carrier pigeons and all other of tracking devices to find me if I don't update after a few days. If certain "guilty pleasures" aren't updated within 48 hours I send off an email to see if they are still alive.
Anyway, these folks in the room don't understand social media. They don't get it. Those that do get it can't create it, they only can imitate it. So I was in a room of people who want to either sell the eyeballs of the readers you draw to your site or buy the eyeballs of your readers by placing the ads on your site. You need the eyeball purchasers, the eyeball sellers can be eliminated with computer code.
Remember when we needed travel agents to book a cruise? Its the same concept. The agencies and ad networks are making their money in the same way that travel agents made their money back in the day. The airlines didn't necessarily want to deal with you directly ( too burdensome and costly) so if you wanted access to that airline ticket or that cruise, you had to go through them. There is still a market for travel agents to plan complicated group travel and special events, but the the market for merely processing a transaction between two parties is dominated by people who figured out some computer code to do that for us.
The money is being made by the people who place themselves in between your readers and the advertisers. The work they are doing matching advertisers with eyeballs could be easily replaced by some computer code. So in effect they are creating inefficiency in the marketplace by skimming a profit for doing something a bot could do. Before we get to the point, I did have to throw in this unsolicited tidbit.I gleaned from the room full of BET ("THE GREAT SATAN) executives yesterday . . .
1 MILLION DOLLARS IN REPARATIONS FOR BLACK WOMEN
For all you Black women who have been ticked off by the DAMAGE you think the GREAT SATAN has done to us and the Black community in general, you will be happy to know that one of the litle birdies at the conference who was in a position to KNOW told me offhand that WAOD cost BET 1 million dollars last year with out peaceful and docile discussion of THAT SHOW we had to defund. Stop Funding Foolishness!
I think my little birdie was actually low balling the amount. If you view our efforts directed at THAT SHOW in isolation, maybe it was 1 million dollars, but what about the advertisers that were ticked off at BET for being so reckless with their brand? What about the subsequent protests now that we proved THE GREAT SATAN wasn't invincible? What about the Parents Television Council and Industry Ears releasing a report of THE GREAT SATAN's content on its afternoon programming. Remember Proctor & Gamble putting up that 1-800 line. You think they were happy to have to do that? The world's largest advertiser having to babysit a television network? Why do y'all think Rap City is gone? coincidence? I think not. So just consider that purported 1 Million dollars reparations for all of the harm inflicted on Black women and girls over the years. but back on topic.
BET'S SMOKE AND MIRRORS -Plans to Turn Black Bloggers into Sharecroppers
So BET is trying to grow their online ad network. As with all things, they weren't a market leader and are now playing catchup. In case you haven't figured it out THE GREAT SATAN's ability to make money is based on fooling large advertisers. By creating an illusion. For example BET loves to boast 84 million subscribers. They don't tell you that they have those 84 million subscribers because they are part of the basic cable package. If people had to choose to invite BET into their homes... most people would not other than their awards shows, they don't have any noteworthy "original" programming.
They also create the illusion that BET is destination viewing for Black people, well VH1 torpedoed that when they started launching the trilogy of tawdriness ( Flavor of Love, I Love New York, Charmed School). That's why BET had to scramble last year and start producing "original" programming.
The only added value BET's advertising network has to offer to an advertiser like Ford, GM, P& G, Yum Brands, etc is SCALE. That's a new word I learned yesterday.. SCALE. SCALE SCALE SCALE. Its all about SCALE... unless its not.
Well to hear the BET executive tell it ( He was LOUD, ARROGANT and WRONG by the way... what eles is new) But to hear the BET adnetwork executive tell it, it is impossible for 'the little guy" to make it without playing by BET's rules. What a bunch of gibberish and tomfoolery.
The only barrier to SCALE is a couple of lines of computer code. That's it. A few lines of computer code allows any of us to display the ads of anybody we want to on our websites. You may not have millions of page hits a month, but I can put your hundreds of hits with my ten thousands of hits with the thousands of hits of other Black blogger in a bundle an voila... we have scale. SCALE is called a WIDGET, and embed, a gadget.
All we have to do is hook up with someone who knows the ad game and how to sale and we could created out own networks made up of high quality, frequently updated sites with PASSIONATE and Addicted... I mean LOYAL readers( I mean like seriously, y'all visit my blog more than I do). That means allowing advertisers to develop "meaningful and engaging relationships" (another new cliche from yesterday) with audiences with OUR readers instead of the blood sucking sociopaths at BET. Plus, we would get to keep a higher percentage of the ad revenue and charge advertisers a lower rate because we wouldn't have BET's overhead. Meaning, the advertisers wouldn't be paying for BET to send dozens of executives to conferences where they spout complete and total nonsense in front of a room of people who don't know enought to call them on their crap.
It's not really all that hard. Okay its "challenging" to set up, but it can be done. It must be done before THE GREAT SATAN is allowed to infect the Black blogosphere with its plague of multimedia crack cocaine the way that it had infected broadcast television. WE are in the position of power because BET has to feast on our blood in order to survive online. They can't create. They can't innovate. They can't create "meaningful and engaging relationships", so they are going to let Black bloggers do it, pay us peanuts and then live out their champagne wishes and caviar dreams on our backs while lying to advertisers about what BET is able to deliver. BET can't deliver the mail. No seriously, when has there ever been a TELEVISION NETWORK that can't deliver a single, solitary scripted show... not even a frigging cartoon. They can't create their own juice, they have to attach themselves to the arteries of others like vampires.
They are a television network that was built on music videos created by others. Any "original" programming they have been able to produce, of late, has been a naked imitation of the work of other people. What BET does is appropriate the work of other people, bundle that work and sale the eyeballs of the people who want to look at that work. That's what they did with music videos, we can't let them do that to Black blogs.
Individually we may not have SCALE, but working together, as we do everyday when we link to each other, promote each other's causes, provide information to each other, embed our widgets in our blogs, we are creating SCALE. The people in the room didn't know that because they have NO CLUE about social media and the people they are looking to for advice don't understand social media either. They are setting up business models that look identical to the failures of the past.
I didn't bother to point this out during THE GREAT SATAN'S outburst at the conference because it is rare that you get to see such an excessive display of hubris in public. Its quite entertaining to watch someone so arrogant, so loud and SO WRONG. It was like watching a rhetorical magic show. The BET exec was blowing smoke and flashing mirrors, but anybody that knows anything thing about creating a BRAND NEW online community from scratch ( as opposed to propping your website up with your radio show or your television network), a little bit of something about writing code, and a relationship with someone who knows the ad game can pull this off . Heck, we had probably 2 million page clicks a month at kicking it at Blogging While Brown last year. *cough* hint *cough*
The moral of the story is, BET, Interactive One etc., aren't doing anything Black bloggers couldn't do on their own. The only piece missing is someone to sell directly to large advertisers and someone to write the code to pull this off. It ain't that hard...otherwise the intellectually and morally-challenged sociopaths at BET couldn't even attempt it.
Barry Cooper an old school cyberpreneur from back in the day(he created Blackvoices.com.. Show of hands to those who remember Netnoir!!!) was on a panel and he recited the quote, "A rising tide lifts all boats". Well BET it trying to make sure it's boat is the Queen Mary II while Black bloggers are rising standing on five shoots of bamboo tied together by palm fronds.
It would not take much to drive a rhetorical wooden stake through the heart of this Black blogging vampire.It would be my personal TREAT to keep BET for turning this TRICK Happy Halloween y'all!!!
For those of you who don't celebrate Halloween because you believe it is the work of the Devil, Happy Harvest Festival! (The kids don't care as long as they get to dress up and eat candy!)
Okay, the first part of this post is somewhat wonky, but I promise you that you'll get my requisite BET jabs at the end of the post. Okay, so it's coming, but I had to give you background first before you can get your payoff.
Y'all know I a big advocate of Black bloggers, even those I don't agree with. I think at this stage of the development of new media, we rise, fall, sink and swim, together. Well, yesterday I did some blog-related travel and made a pit stop at an excellent conference put on by the folks at Target Market News. Mr. Smikle doesn't like bloggers or social networks very much, he said we're "anarchy", but he threw a heck of a conference. Not because of the free beverages and hot cider in the lobby, but because of the people he is able to get in the room.
I sat next to Jacque Reid and an executive from Hewlett Packard. I had a blast at the back of the room. I only managed to heckle one presenter who said that Black-oriented websites have STATIC content? He cited for his reference BET.com and BlackAmericaWeb. I was of course indignant because y'all will put out an ABP, text messages, carrier pigeons and all other of tracking devices to find me if I don't update after a few days. If certain "guilty pleasures" aren't updated within 48 hours I send off an email to see if they are still alive.
Anyway, these folks in the room don't understand social media. They don't get it. Those that do get it can't create it, they only can imitate it. So I was in a room of people who want to either sell the eyeballs of the readers you draw to your site or buy the eyeballs of your readers by placing the ads on your site. You need the eyeball purchasers, the eyeball sellers can be eliminated with computer code.
Remember when we needed travel agents to book a cruise? Its the same concept. The agencies and ad networks are making their money in the same way that travel agents made their money back in the day. The airlines didn't necessarily want to deal with you directly ( too burdensome and costly) so if you wanted access to that airline ticket or that cruise, you had to go through them. There is still a market for travel agents to plan complicated group travel and special events, but the the market for merely processing a transaction between two parties is dominated by people who figured out some computer code to do that for us.
The money is being made by the people who place themselves in between your readers and the advertisers. The work they are doing matching advertisers with eyeballs could be easily replaced by some computer code. So in effect they are creating inefficiency in the marketplace by skimming a profit for doing something a bot could do. Before we get to the point, I did have to throw in this unsolicited tidbit.I gleaned from the room full of BET ("THE GREAT SATAN) executives yesterday . . .
1 MILLION DOLLARS IN REPARATIONS FOR BLACK WOMEN
For all you Black women who have been ticked off by the DAMAGE you think the GREAT SATAN has done to us and the Black community in general, you will be happy to know that one of the litle birdies at the conference who was in a position to KNOW told me offhand that WAOD cost BET 1 million dollars last year with out peaceful and docile discussion of THAT SHOW we had to defund. Stop Funding Foolishness!
I think my little birdie was actually low balling the amount. If you view our efforts directed at THAT SHOW in isolation, maybe it was 1 million dollars, but what about the advertisers that were ticked off at BET for being so reckless with their brand? What about the subsequent protests now that we proved THE GREAT SATAN wasn't invincible? What about the Parents Television Council and Industry Ears releasing a report of THE GREAT SATAN's content on its afternoon programming. Remember Proctor & Gamble putting up that 1-800 line. You think they were happy to have to do that? The world's largest advertiser having to babysit a television network? Why do y'all think Rap City is gone? coincidence? I think not. So just consider that purported 1 Million dollars reparations for all of the harm inflicted on Black women and girls over the years. but back on topic.
BET'S SMOKE AND MIRRORS -Plans to Turn Black Bloggers into Sharecroppers
So BET is trying to grow their online ad network. As with all things, they weren't a market leader and are now playing catchup. In case you haven't figured it out THE GREAT SATAN's ability to make money is based on fooling large advertisers. By creating an illusion. For example BET loves to boast 84 million subscribers. They don't tell you that they have those 84 million subscribers because they are part of the basic cable package. If people had to choose to invite BET into their homes... most people would not other than their awards shows, they don't have any noteworthy "original" programming.
They also create the illusion that BET is destination viewing for Black people, well VH1 torpedoed that when they started launching the trilogy of tawdriness ( Flavor of Love, I Love New York, Charmed School). That's why BET had to scramble last year and start producing "original" programming.
The only added value BET's advertising network has to offer to an advertiser like Ford, GM, P& G, Yum Brands, etc is SCALE. That's a new word I learned yesterday.. SCALE. SCALE SCALE SCALE. Its all about SCALE... unless its not.
Well to hear the BET executive tell it ( He was LOUD, ARROGANT and WRONG by the way... what eles is new) But to hear the BET adnetwork executive tell it, it is impossible for 'the little guy" to make it without playing by BET's rules. What a bunch of gibberish and tomfoolery.
The only barrier to SCALE is a couple of lines of computer code. That's it. A few lines of computer code allows any of us to display the ads of anybody we want to on our websites. You may not have millions of page hits a month, but I can put your hundreds of hits with my ten thousands of hits with the thousands of hits of other Black blogger in a bundle an voila... we have scale. SCALE is called a WIDGET, and embed, a gadget.
All we have to do is hook up with someone who knows the ad game and how to sale and we could created out own networks made up of high quality, frequently updated sites with PASSIONATE and Addicted... I mean LOYAL readers( I mean like seriously, y'all visit my blog more than I do). That means allowing advertisers to develop "meaningful and engaging relationships" (another new cliche from yesterday) with audiences with OUR readers instead of the blood sucking sociopaths at BET. Plus, we would get to keep a higher percentage of the ad revenue and charge advertisers a lower rate because we wouldn't have BET's overhead. Meaning, the advertisers wouldn't be paying for BET to send dozens of executives to conferences where they spout complete and total nonsense in front of a room of people who don't know enought to call them on their crap.
It's not really all that hard. Okay its "challenging" to set up, but it can be done. It must be done before THE GREAT SATAN is allowed to infect the Black blogosphere with its plague of multimedia crack cocaine the way that it had infected broadcast television. WE are in the position of power because BET has to feast on our blood in order to survive online. They can't create. They can't innovate. They can't create "meaningful and engaging relationships", so they are going to let Black bloggers do it, pay us peanuts and then live out their champagne wishes and caviar dreams on our backs while lying to advertisers about what BET is able to deliver. BET can't deliver the mail. No seriously, when has there ever been a TELEVISION NETWORK that can't deliver a single, solitary scripted show... not even a frigging cartoon. They can't create their own juice, they have to attach themselves to the arteries of others like vampires.
They are a television network that was built on music videos created by others. Any "original" programming they have been able to produce, of late, has been a naked imitation of the work of other people. What BET does is appropriate the work of other people, bundle that work and sale the eyeballs of the people who want to look at that work. That's what they did with music videos, we can't let them do that to Black blogs.
Individually we may not have SCALE, but working together, as we do everyday when we link to each other, promote each other's causes, provide information to each other, embed our widgets in our blogs, we are creating SCALE. The people in the room didn't know that because they have NO CLUE about social media and the people they are looking to for advice don't understand social media either. They are setting up business models that look identical to the failures of the past.
I didn't bother to point this out during THE GREAT SATAN'S outburst at the conference because it is rare that you get to see such an excessive display of hubris in public. Its quite entertaining to watch someone so arrogant, so loud and SO WRONG. It was like watching a rhetorical magic show. The BET exec was blowing smoke and flashing mirrors, but anybody that knows anything thing about creating a BRAND NEW online community from scratch ( as opposed to propping your website up with your radio show or your television network), a little bit of something about writing code, and a relationship with someone who knows the ad game can pull this off . Heck, we had probably 2 million page clicks a month at kicking it at Blogging While Brown last year. *cough* hint *cough*
The moral of the story is, BET, Interactive One etc., aren't doing anything Black bloggers couldn't do on their own. The only piece missing is someone to sell directly to large advertisers and someone to write the code to pull this off. It ain't that hard...otherwise the intellectually and morally-challenged sociopaths at BET couldn't even attempt it.
Barry Cooper an old school cyberpreneur from back in the day(he created Blackvoices.com.. Show of hands to those who remember Netnoir!!!) was on a panel and he recited the quote, "A rising tide lifts all boats". Well BET it trying to make sure it's boat is the Queen Mary II while Black bloggers are rising standing on five shoots of bamboo tied together by palm fronds.
It would not take much to drive a rhetorical wooden stake through the heart of this Black blogging vampire.It would be my personal TREAT to keep BET for turning this TRICK Happy Halloween y'all!!!
For those of you who don't celebrate Halloween because you believe it is the work of the Devil, Happy Harvest Festival! (The kids don't care as long as they get to dress up and eat candy!)
Don't forget to like our Facebook Page. We shut down our NING network. My book More Than Words is now available for download for $3.99 | 15 Comments | Share Article
15 Comments | Share Article tagged BET Interactive, Interactive One, Uncategorized, clinton in Uncategorized
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Reader Comments (15)
Very interesting. Thank you for blogging on this.
Thanks for this, Gina. Someone from the "BET Ad Network" approached me about working with them for my site and my jaw hit the ground. My site is a very vocal critic of BET and if she's paid attention to my actual content, she would know as much. With that, I encourage my Black bloggers to think twice about joining these branded ad networks that are supposedly catering to a Black audience. That third-party money could be going in YOUR pocket and all these networks really do is poach your content and the returns are negligible. See: Essence Ad Network, etc.
Wow, everytime I hear about the tomfoolery of BET I am just can't believe that these are Ivy League black folks who run this network. They really make affirmative action on the collegiate level look really bad.
I mean I have seen more creative high school drop outs. How come in our community the talent pool and the resources don't seem to connect in the media at least? We have DL Hughley w/ a show on CNN, we got all these hood books in our bookstores. We seem to have our worst at the forefront.
I will keep my eyes, ears, and heart open about this. I will pass this along to others!
Thank you for this!
Hey Gina,
Great recap.
I've been to two Target Market News Events and skipped yesterdays. I'm going to forward you an e-mail that I sent to someone else about the event.
Also, I tweeted this yesterday --- Blogs have the advantage over big guys but they don't know how to utilize it. Mktg/PR people know it and exploit relationships.
Technology can allow bloggers to have the upper hand in online publishing. We're more tech savvy and because we can make decisions on the fly, we can move quicker.
One message that I really want to get out to bloggers is to stop giving away free advertising to everyone. We need to understand the difference between editorial content and advertising.
Black people are so creative, we’ve started so many major trends and have contributed so much to the fabric of America’s Arts and Culture. It amazes me how BET is always behind the curve. I would think that a black entertainment channel would be one of the easiest things to manage. There’s so much amazing black music, dance, art, poetry, photography, literature etc. that I can point to right here in my city, let alone the entire country. I think there’s something in the institutional culture at BET that inhibits innovation. It’s almost as if they feel they are responsible for creating the “black version” of things that already exist. As if they will not try something unless a white channel has tested it out already. I’m sure talented people end up there and get all the creativity beat out of them on day one. I’d hate to see black blogs fall into that trap. I think black blogs, particularly entertainment blogs, are the lease static pieces of black media out there.
As a gay black blogger who talks a lot of shit I highly doubt I'll be hearing from BET anytime soon. I'm sure they don't even think Gay Black bloggers exist.
Having said that, who gives a crackhoes toothless blow job whether or not they get me or you or anyone else?
Negroes in suits who push the crap that BET does have no effect on me.
This info is very useful. As an aspiring blogger, I am so clueless to all the games people try to run, so thanks for the heads up. Gina, keep doing it girl.
Thank you so much for the recap Gina. BET is known as bet you don't get paid in the DC area.
Viacom still owns BET, correct? Well, that corporation certainly has lost a lot of money recently, especially CBS. I'm sure somewhere buried in their quarterly report is the lowdown on BET.
You're right, it has to be that they lost more than a million.
Thanks Gina, Great post!
I'll make you an offer you can't refuse on this devil of a problem.
If you hold the stake, I'll swing the mallet, to drive it right through the heart of 'The Great Satan'.
Now that they are feeling threatened by 'The little Guy', they will try to pull out all the stops. Don't be fooled by a network the preys on the misfortunes of others and "Eats its own young'.
Why would any Black Blogger with any sense even consider a joint venture with'The Great Satan', it makes no sense whatsoever, you are just taking food from your own childrens mouths to feed a demon that couldn't come up with an idea of its own if its life depended on it.
Case in point, they are trying to feed off of 'you' because they have been 'called out', they got nothing, so I say, go away.
Gina: Had I known that you were in town, I'd have taken you out for a drink. btw, few understand social media at this point. I'm grateful for your brief lecture in Denver.
And, I've known Ken Smikle for more than 20 years. I'm sure he doesn't understand it but I believe he'll learn sooner or later.
Wow. Important info!
There are many techies in the AfroSpear/Sphere who may have the expertise or know some one who does. Perhaps we should do a query. Fredric Mitchell (young black professional guide) and Angela Benton (Black Web 2.0) come to mind. I'm down.