On TheOuterNet.com and other sites

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on September 29th, 2008

We received a heads up from comedian Bruce Baum on the rollout of his new comedy-centric networking site TheOuterNet.com. From the press release:

From the guy who brought you BabyMan, Dimples The Cow, Chiaman, and of course, literary phenom, Ted L. Nancy, now comes TheOuterNet.com, a uniquely friendly comedy destination that features original content videos, along with shorts and blogs from the TheOuterNet community of “nuts” (friends). TheOuterNet.com also features games, off-beat profiles, and a burgeoning community of creative outer-there “nuts.”

Designed by Bruce Baum and web-designer extraordinaire Jack Douglas, TheOuternet.com is a very happy hangout for your head. In fact, several doctors have suggested that visiting TheOuterNet.com several times a week, couldn’t hurt.

Baum was among the video artists in residence at Fox’s “The Sunday Comics” television show in 1991 and 1992. (Others included Gilbert Gottfried, Rich Hall and Ric Overton.) He did similar work at ABC. We worked with Baum for a week at the Riv in Vegas a couple years back.

Much of Baum’s work from his Fox days is included among the video offerings on the site, as are his new productions like “Bald Like Me.” Those wishing to join (or become “nuts,” in the site’s vernacular) need only fill out a short form and commence to uploading pics, videos and other materials. (We were assured by Baum that the artist retains all rights to his works.)

Are niche networking/video sites like this the future of the internet? Only time will tell. We’ve been pondering the direction of business/social networking sites lately and we have come to a few conclusions:

1. MySpace is in danger of flaming out. The novelty has worn off. The initial enthusiasm has been replaced by a feeling of obligation. It’s one more site that has to been maintained, checked, pruned, tended to. We’ve noticed that the bulletins seem less exciting, less useful, more predictable. Even the simple communication function seems to be utilized less. What was so wrong with email, anyway?

2. There are too many social and/or business networking sites competing for our membership. The Male Half and the Female Half currently have invitations to LinkedIn, Hi5, Plaxo and FaceBook. So, sooner or later, a decision must be made as to which are worth working with and which are not. There are, after all, so many hours in the day.

3. Can anyone tell anyone else exactly what the practical purpose of LinkedIn is? As an experiment, The Male Half took the LinkedIn plunge. And, after many months and many invitations accepted, he still can’t honestly say what practical advantage can be had by joining the network and maintaining it. And he was relieved to know that others are similarly perplexed. (And the foggy, mushy mystery of the usefulness of that network is the subject of many a vicious blog posting across the internet.)

4. The same goes for FaceBook. As an experiment, The Female Half created a FaceBook profile. As a social networking site, it might be peachy, but as a marketing tool it is an utter failure. (“If you have to be friends with someone to view his/her profile, what good is it?” she asks.)

None of these complaints can be filed under “Crotchety Oldsters Who Don’t Understand The Internets”– we’ve been online for 13 years as of next month, so we’re familiar with the conventions of the WWW and we’re savvy when it comes to user interfaces and the general thrust of most online initiatives. (Indeed, we’re semi-familiar with most or all these innovations before they become cultural phenomena.) But we eventually crunch the numbers and examine the ratio of time spent in maintenance to benefits and, for a lot of these sites, the numbers don’t add up.

YouTube is successful because it is so useful. It does something for you that you couldn’t do yourself (host a video and exhibit it simply). But it is so vast, and its offerings so diverse, that you must do the marketing. It is up to you to drive people to your video or to your channel. TheOuterNet takes that concept and narrows the focus and has a more sharply defined mission.

Baum’s narrowly-focused site is, of course, an excellent vehicle for promoting his own video output, but it also hopes to highlight the work of other comedians. And he insists that the site’s personal touch– with Baum himself regularly touting newly-added clips on the front page– will be what differentiates it from other corporate sites like Funny Or Die, making it more of an online television show than a sprawling aggregator site. “Other sites are trying to be WalMart,” Baum says. “We’re trying to be Trader Joe’s.”

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