I wouldn’t call myself exactly up with the bleeding edge of the Web 2.0 thing, but I have the occasional dabble to see what’s going on out there in the big wide world. Interesting that, amid all the economic turmoil going on out there and the savage swinging back & forth of the business axe (e.g. in the UK we’ve recently lost high street chains Woolworths, Zavvi and Whittards of Chelsea), there are still internet startups popping up left, right & centre optimistically hoping to bring in cash…
One such idea that caught my eye was girlinyourshirt.com – it’s not exactly rocket science: the idea is that a moderately good looking woman wears your company tshirt while she presents a videocast about your company/product. From what I could tell, you pay her about US$200 for the privilege, and she’ll update her site every day. Essentially it’s a non-celebrity endorsement (or, I suppose, advertisement), with the added joy being that if she gets enough of a following it’ll become a celebrity endorsement. Well, web-celebrity, anyway. The thing I don’t follow is how she’s hoping to build up a loyal following of viewers, as essentially you’re watching adverts, and as she’ll advertise whatever people will pay for there’s not necessarily any relevance-filtering going on to make the advertised product interesting. Still, she’s done 20 episodes, which means if nothing else she’s bagged 4 grand and scored 20 new t-shirts.
Oh, and since I drafted this the idea already seems to have expanded to bandinyourshirt – presumably along similar lines, but allowing up & coming bands to try desperately to get some attention in the process.
Now I’m starting to feel all cynical… but even though I was already sick of the public’s obsession with celebrity, and instant celebrity (via such worthwhile exercises as Big Brother), it has suddenly become apparent that we’re going to be getting more and more of this sort of thing in the future, particularly from the Web 2.0 crowd’s “personal branding” push. Of course, complaining about that would be hypocritical from anyone who’s purchased a domain in their own name.
Bah! Someone get me another beer.