Settle A Bet For Me: Techcrunch or Oprah?
If you were a thriving, early-stage internet media company (let’s say like Facebook 18 months ago) with equal gender mix, 18-50 year old demographics…would you rather come out of stealth mode via a segment on Oprah or a flattering post on Techcrunch?
Discuss.
Oprah
Probably Oprah too, ’cause that’s the audience I’d target
Oprah having witnessed the effect.
Oprah. Techcrunch would follow naturally w/o a lick of effort just because of the “O” buzz.
Oprah hands down. It would be a hell of a lot easier to get on TechCrunch by saying “As featured on Oprah Winfrey’s show” then trying to get on Oprah saying “As featured on TechCrunch”. Plus your mom would be prouder…
Uh, this might be the geekiest question ever- do you have a clue how much wider Oprah is than TechCrunch? Walk down any street and ask any person you see which they’ve heard of…
We’re talking tens of millions worth of PR vs. tens of thousands worth.
oops I just got linkbaited…
Dude, Oprah. She makes millionaires all day long.
Well discussed, Joe!
I think I agree with you, but it depends where you can get more buzz from. It’s mainly about secondary buzz I think - not people who watch Oprah or read Techcrunch directly - it’s about what happens after that.
Techcrunch:
Pros: read by VCs, cuts straight into the geek market
Cons: read by VCs, cuts straight into the geek market
Oprah:
Pros: massive reach
Cons: TV so requires people to type in URL (if you’re flickr, you don’t want to be on Oprah till you’ve been on Techcrunch in my opinion)
TechCrunch
Oprah.
Oprah hands down.
I kind of hate Oprah.
Dr. Phil
Thanks for the responses. Except for Andy. And I don’t even know how to score Rebecca’s.
Anyways, my point to the drowning-in-his-own-KoolAid-VC was that Techrunch would kill for a citation from Oprah, but Oprah doesn’t even know what Techcrunch is. Plus the natural resonance, as Michael smartly pointed out, is that if you did get on Oprah for your Internet play, it’s almost a sure bet that Techcrunch would follow.
This actually all started out from a discussion about influence marketing and “offline linkbaiting”.
You all are very smart. The VC and Andy need help. And Rebecca just needs a hug.
Traffic and links from offline media citations are a joke.
I have had sites get on national TV before and get about 20 visitors, and zero links, out of the deal. Bzzz, try again.
You ain’t been on Oprah, sister! Snap!
Thank you Will
You’ve totally lost touch with traditional media if you don’t say Oprah. Imagine if she pimped Facebook 18 months ago? Yeeeks.
I’m going to disagree with you techcrunch all the way.
If I appeared on Oprah I might not even get a link, techcrunch is a link (and scraped links) are in the bag.
Who’s audience has higher internet user penetration … well duh?
Which audience comprises early adopters and people who have a better chance of spreading things in a viral word of mouth way? Oprah’s audience by definition is made up of followers.
Now if I were pimping a book, CD, tv show or movie the answer would be Oprah hands down
Gray:
I can see that, but I would also look at it this way:
1) If you get a segment on Oprah, you’ll get a ton of blog links. From the Mommy blogs to the other Internet Media/Tech blogs talking about how you were on Oprah, you’ll get the links. Facebook got a ton of links for Mark being on the Today show…and that’s just Meredith Viera.
2) Internet user penetration. I like the smaller penetration of Oprah’s audience reach of tens of millions of homes versus the 750k religious users of Techcrunch.
3) I think a consumer Internet play is similar to a TV show in the ability for offline luminaries to impart velocity into an online experience. If Shaq said, “Add Scoreboard Media Group to your Bloglines” on Sportscenter, I think I get more new subs than if I pimped it on, uhh, CalancisCast. :)
This is probably a question of which answer is more right. Each of us would whore ourselves for either. I just think I’d go bounce around Oprah’s couch or fake some tears in front of America before I bought Arrington some new Callaways.
BP
Something else to consider coming out of ’stealth’ mode:
Techcrunch - You better have your shit together
Oprah - You better have your shit completely locked down and ready to go nineteen ways from Sunday
Come on people, we’re not talking about linkbait, we’re talking about awareness. I worked for a company that got Techcrunch and Digged (top post) on the same day- it was a blip. We added about 1200 users that were nothing but curiosity-seekers. Both are highly overrated. No one outside of our world pays any attention whatsoever to Techcrunch including any decision-makers in any businesses large or small (OK, maybe VCs…)
I look at my wife and sister in law both of whom watch Oprah somewhat regulalrly and would be pretty typical viewers. They watch TV to be passively entertained, to make them take an action after the show requires a bit of effort. Techcrunch readers are actively looking for online stuff, all you have to put the link there for them to click. For an example what percentage of Oprah’s viewers use Oprah’s website.
That said if Oprah or Rachel Ray or heck even Tony Danza if he still had a show, I’d be whoring myself out tommorow, nor saying sorry I’ll pass I’m waiting for Arrington to get back to me.
Techcrunch - hands down and here’s why
Before becoming an SEO copywriter, I worked for an educational charity that was prominently featured on Oprah years ago.
The organization experienced monumental growth. But as the years pass since the Oprah appearance, people are forgetting about it and the growth has slowed down significantly.
This has put the organization in a vicious cycle of layoffs/hirings/layoffs.
Yes, Oprah will give you a MAJOR hit, but steady growth is so much better. Once you hit the cycles I mentioned above, it’s very difficult to get out from under.
>>>internet media company
Techcrunch, hands down, assuming you can get featured and assuming you wanted calls from venture capitalists and not so much product sales per say. And if you’re an Internet media company, Techcrunch will likely get you the right type of VC as opposed to Oprah. Oprah makes you a rockstar, Techcrunch can get you bought. The real answer is you take both because no GOOD Internet media company president isn’t a complete and total whore. :)
Oprah. I think the value of offline marketing is very underrated. Just because it is a tv show doesn’t mean they don’t have a website which links to the features from the show.
One of my clients was featured on the Rachael Ray show. Huge boost to traffic because they were linked to from her homepage day of the show and they have a permanent link in the show’s archives that still draws traffic over a month later. Traffic boost was very similar to Digg effect except it was more targetted, more pageviews and had more of a lasting effect, not just one day up then right back down the next day.