NonSociety Top Websites of 2008

The episode isn't meant to introduce new sites - it's the "Nonsociety Top Websites of 2008" episode, which just means their favorite. est. Or Bestest. Or whatever.

I loved this episode - it uses the original "girlfriends hanging out" concept really well.  And Mary, I can't even get over the hair.  It's so shiny!

But I thought the whole point of this show was to inform and entertain. You can't get viewers without valuable, relevant content. You can't get page views without viewers. You can't get advertising and sponsors without page views. You can't make money without advertising and sponsors. See how it all works? Sometimes, I think they have their business plan all backwards.... if they have one at all.

Some people are more internet saavy than others.  You can't assume everyone knows about these sites.  I didn't know about a couple.  And Lindsey is right here, this episode is a review of what we liked in 2008.

Jessalyn also has a point.  Of course we are trying to get more people involved with TMI, but it's not our ONLY concern.  We have a strategy that hopefully finds a balance between what our readers/viewers are looking for with brands we genuinely like and use.

Building a website and a brand concurrently is not as easy as it seems.  Programming is a true challenge.  As much as we would love to just focus on content, we are a startup and have to also run the business and get a revenue flowing, as jessalyn pointed out.  Our business plan is unique in the digital space.  

We appreciate your patience while we build out TMI and NonSociety, and as always, we appreciate your comments.

And...So glad everyone is liking my hair, I am too :)

Mary, thank you for your thought out response. I can appreciate the time involved with building a brand. Where I think NS struggles is the belief that a string of stunts will generate the type of word of mouth that will catapult your business. You've  established and identified your brand. But now you have to focus on brand integrity. Meaning, you have to start demonstrating (and in some cases "proving") to people that the content here is viable and worthwhile of return visits and telling friends to check it out. You don't build brand integrity with Guitar Hero or lip dubs or gift bag giveaways and candid shots of people eating cupcakes. What needs to be addresses concurrently is brand awareness AND brand integrity. It's easy to get visitors to a website. It's harder to keep them coming back, and that's what you want. Personally, I have yet to hear anything on here that I haven't read in Cosmo or Us Weekly or some other publication months ago. It's time to be innovative! If you are to be seen as experts in your respective fields, it's time for you guys to stop planning publicity stunts and looking for sponsors and hunker down and do some actual, real, hard work. Be fresh! Become a true resource, not another tired online e-zine of sorts with repetitive content. That's why Cosmo has been dying a slow death for the past 3 years. Same articles month after month after month. The economy is not the only reason the magazine industry is dying. It's partially due to the utter lack of original content. That's why Marie Claire now stands out. They offer commentary or world views and stories about global women's issues. The biggest problem I see here is that you guys are confusing your personal brand identity with your company's brand identity. This will sound like I'm joining the pile on, but I have to cite Julia's behavior and past as a big reason why NS is struggling. Investors and sponsors are relating NS to Julia and it should NEVER be that way. Your business brand should be able to stand alone. Once you and your brand become interchangeable, you're in trouble. You guys started off that way. You were immediately pegged "Julia Allison's company." Not "NonSociety."

I actually run a business of my own. I'm not using my real name because I don't want this to be perceived as a personal plug. But I do have experience with being confused with my brand and building a business . I had to prove to people that I knew what I was talking about and wasn't just some loudmouth/bitch with too many opinions. Now that I have, I can get away with being who I and still generate great revenue and page views. At this point, your personal activities and personal lives are overshadowing your business. You need to fix that if you want to succeed. That means being more discreet about your personal lives, cutting down on the antics, paying your own way to things like the CES, etc. 

The person I am directing most of this to is Julia. There's a reason why so many publicists told her she was committing PR suicide with being so accessible and out there. It's because SHE WAS. And now your business is paying for it. You want your business to thrive? Reel. Her. In. Despite what she tells you and everyone...there is such a thing as bad publicity. It's been a couple years since she began her campaign of personal branding. Where exactly has it gotten her? Has her public profile pushed your business forward? Or held it back? Where is she in her personal career as a writer? Has she really benefited or is she exactly where she was a year ago constantly going 2 steps forward and then 3 steps back?

Focus on building brand integrity right now. That's what your goal should be.

Great post. I agree wholeheartedly. If JA isn't reeled in dramatically, this venture is done. Her brand is an wildly unpopular one. You cannot build a business on people despising you, no matter what JA says. Case in point is Paris Hilton, JA's onetime idol. She's done, over, finished. She was famous for doing nothing, became despised the more she revealed of her personality, and now no one cares what she does and the paparazzi is bored by her repetitive antics. That's already started to happen with JA. Not even Gawker is interested in her anonymous tips about herself anymore.

More suggestions.....why is Julia the only one giving presentations at Mediabistro events and Learning Annex events? Why isn't Mary or Megan getting any press coverage or being quoted? You guys ALL need to be getting your faces an opinions out there. If Julia insists that she be "the face" then I seriously recommend that you re-evaluate. So far people have been somewhat understanding of your missed opportunities i.e. CES tradeshow coverage. You don't have much of that kind of time left. One final suggestion, as it appears my original instincts were correct......do not allow Julia to post fake comments here. It musn't be a coincidence that they day of your departure you reached almost 60 comments mainly because Julia  and her body came under fire, and the last two days while she's been without much internet connection those same comments have been nowhere to be found.

Oh, sorry..more from me...

Getting the URL of your Superlatives page wrong and not being aware that URLs are case sensitive? Totally unacceptable given you are trying to launch an online business and web presence. That made you look like rubes. I'm so sorry for my tone. I really don't mean to sound snippy, but you guys are making some catastrophic mistakes with how you are developing this business. Time to invest in a solid business coach. I highly recommend it.

One thing I wanted to add as well, Noreen, as someone who also has her own business -- in this economy, people are not interested in personality-driven ventures. Especially when the personalities seem self-obsessed and frivolous. Those days are OVER. People want content and meaning. Sure, you can do The View thing, but find better, more meaningful topics. When you go to an event like CES, do Vimeos about the latest cutting-edge gadgets or emerging trends, not about the press pass guy or your hand model potential, for God's sake.

The coverage you have seen of CES has been most of the "fun" opportunities we've had.  The reason it hasn't been particulary tech heavy is because we are actually focused on making professional videos for sponsors.  

Blogging about tech specs is close to impossible on the fly, and we have not had a moment to sit in front of our computers.

Next week, we will all have breakdowns of our favorite new technologies and gadgets in great depth.

Please be patient, we can only do so many things at once.

Mary, it is big of you and mature of you to come in and address the criticism. I don't think JA could have done the same with the same amount of maturity. 

But with all due respect, there are plenty and plenty of bloggers covering the event. In the time it took you guys to do lipdubs and go to the porn convention, you could have actually posted some interesting and meaningful content. I'd like this to succeed for you and Meghan. I fear you really did yourselves and your audience a very grave disservice in the way you "covered" this event. You made yourselves look frivolous and dumb. And I don't think you and Meghan are that way at all. It's such a shame.

Joanie, I agree. Sorry if this is off topic, but I followed the CES coverage over the weekend and it was really embarrassing. It looks like you guys had a big opportunity to shine and you blew it. You say that what you do is hard work, but your poor time management skills were on full display. It looks like you spent a lot of wasted time on silly stunts and not enough time on providing valuable information to your readers. 

Now it even looks like you've deleted a lot of your CES posts, which makes it even worse. It's too late... people have already seen them and formed an opinion. Sorry, but I think you let a lot of your supporters down this weekend. I think you owe an apology to them, and to your sponsors and investors for this big misstep. Hopefully you can learn from it.

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lsaml wrote on January 9, 12:49 pm: "...suit-o grammatical, really..."

"Suit-o"?  Is that some clothing-making robot from the future?  Or some game involving gambling and tailoring?

I think you meant "pseudo."

(I don't mean to sound catty, by the way - I just wanted an excuse to write a joke about the word "suit-o"!)

Well Harrison, clearly you haven't been following Dr. Asha for nearly long enough.

I was just pointing out that you were ripping apart Megan for her writing and yet made a ridiculous mistake (you wrote "suit-o grammatical" even though it should have been "pseudo-grammatical").

Again, I wasn't trying to be nitpicking - just thought it would be fun to write some jokes about "suit-o," one of the funnier spelling errors I've seen in quite a while (I edit essays as a part-time job, which is why I guess I find spelling errors humorous in the first place).

As much as I love Mary, you must get a real kick out of some of her misspellings. However, I'd take her misspellings over more "look at me" shots of her pal any day of the week.

"I was just pointing out that you were ripping apart Megan for her writing and yet made a ridiculous mistake (you wrote "suit-o grammatical" even though it should have been "pseudo-grammatical")."

FYI....She/He was mocking Meghan's or Mary's misspelling of the word in one of their blog posts.

Thanks Nomad - didn't get what lsaml was doing in her original post (so sorry!).

For a comedian, I was pretty slow on the uptake for that particular joke... lol!

harrison, the joke is, meghan was the original writer of "suit-o" on her blog a while back.  get it?  good.

You obviously haven't read the site long enough. Miss Meghan Asha is the one who coined "suit-o" as she belived that that is how "pseudo" was spelled. Can't decide if I like that or Mary's "she she" (for "chi chi") better. Of course there are plenty of other bizarre spellings to choose from as well in the history of this business venture. Quality control is clearly not a large concern here.