[Newspoetry] Newspoetry Market Competition Report

[Joe Futrelle]

I notice also that www.xtremepoetry.com is also available.

On Fri, Feb 09, 2001 at 12:46:22AM +0000, Scott Rettberg wrote:
> Per your request and agreement to pay my fee of one hundred poems, yes 
> including all copyrights, in perpetuity, future and past tense, I submit the
> following market espionage report to Mr. Joseph Futrelle (CEO) and Mr.
> William Gillespie (Founder), as well the executive committee of the Board of
> Directors of "Newspoetry.com" ­­ an Illinois concern, pre-incorporation.
> 
> Feasability: Newspoetry does not offer a feasible business model. No one
> will pay for this shit. But, and I emphasize but, that bespeaks conventional
> wisdom, which is often wrong. Tenacity and smart marketing can get you the
> equivalent of a linguistic pet rock.
> 
> Reach: Newspoetry has global implications but does not yet reach a global
> audience. I find it hard to believe that among your gang of militant
> intellectuals no one speaks, for instance, Chinese, which is the
> fastest-growing segment of Web consumers on the planet. Not to mention
> Spanish. Go multilingual. Go there fast. Move faster than your competition.
> 
> Messaging: Newspoetry is no longer a poem a day until Y2K. But what is it?
> How do you describe it? While combining "News" and "Poetry" has been to your
> inestimable advantage, you no longer have a tagline with zip. Furthermore,
> your message seems to be split. Are you political or are you silly? Are you
> Anarchist or are you Liberal? Do you support free speech or would you prefer
> that a meter apply?
> 
> Competition: You have heard all of the above from experts far more qualified
> than I, whom you have rewarded with generous pre-IPO stock option packages
> potentially far more valuable than the meat-and-potatoes fee of one hundred
> poems which I require. You are paying me not for my considerable but not
> inestimable marketing wisdom, but for my ability to peer in on your
> competitors and report to you on your supremacy or slippage from an enviable
> market position. Forthwith:
> 
> www.badpoetry.com
> 
> Badpoetry should be regarded as a serious threat to your market position.
> They have a business model. They charge for a material good (greeting cards)
> and they collect revenues on the same. Their Web design is not comparable to
> the sophistication of Newspoetry, but they have offices in Mountain View,
> California, a hotbed of Web Activity. I believe Netscape moved there after
> Champaign rejected *it*. You may breathe a sigh of relief, however, as they
> only have two writers. You have at least five, if not a dozen. There is
> strength in numbers. They have, however, managed to cleverly get around the
> problem of their writing being bad by advertising it as such. Clever
> marketing. You people can learn from this.
> 
> www.goodpoetry.com
> 
> Goodpoetry sucks. It appears to be a project of Chicago Poetry, which, if
> I'm not mistaken, dirtied its reputation by attempting to horn in on the
> e-poets network and steal its and other literary domain names. It appears to
> be little more than advertisement for live poetry events, and not very good
> at that. Sample text:  "February is Love and Sex month./Let's hear your best
> erotic / love poetry at the Chicago Poetry Venues". This is not a threat to
> Newspoetry's market position.
> 
> www.oldpoetry.com
> 
> Oldpoetry is not yet taken. This represents a huge opportunity for an
> enterprising poetry maven.
> 
> www.sexpoetry.com
> 
> Sexpoetry offers nothing in the way of poetry, which I would cite as a flaw
> in its business model. It does, however, offer "Best dirty links" including
> "Sex District USA," "Men's Cocks" (for gays/by gays), "Horny Housewives" (we
> need company), "Twink Studies" (for gay men), "Pam Anderson" (shocking tape
> exposed), "Girls Just Turned 18", "Huge Knocking Boobs" (they're bigger than
> my head), "Japanese Bondage", "Spank Me" (I've been real bad),
> "Cheerleaders", "Sweet Black Pussy" (dark chocolate lovin'), and "Girls
> Doing Girls." Though the content appears to consist of links to pay-for-porn
> sites (the particularly irritating kind with the windows that don't go
> away), Newspoetry should consider Sexpoetry a serious threat to its market
> position, as the Internet has demonstrated an insatiable lust for
> pornography. Newspoetry should take under advisement my recommendation to
> perhaps spice up its act just a bit in the face of this barbarous threat
> from Sexpoetry.
> 
> www.eroticpoetry.com
> 
> Erotic poetry is available. A market opportunity for Newspoetry.
> 
> www.freepoetry.com
> 
> is an alias for Web Predator, a web design firm.
> 
> www.poetry.com
> 
> is a thriving corporate poetry site, featuring 2.4 million poets. They are
> out of your market range and offer cash prizes daily as well as "the best
> 100 poems ever written." Are you even THINKING of trying to compete with
> THAT?
> 
> www.news.com
> 
> news.com is owned by CNET, which covers technology. They've very little
> headway into the poetry market.
> 
> 
> www.lovepoetry.com
> 
> Lovepoetry is a beautiful site that you just can't help walking away from
> feeling better about  the world. It is all we need. Because "when the
> emotion is love, everyone is a poet." The quality of the work on
> lovepoetry.com is undeniable. Who can forget the immortal, "where do the
> angels come from ?/ they come from within your eyes/ soft cotton dreams--
> kisses-/ blowing sweetly through/ the breeze." Lovepoetry runs ads for Chase
> Visa/Mastercard. Where are the credit card banners for Newspoetry?
> 
> www.futrelle.com
> 
> This is the website of one Jacques Futrelle, an up and coming writer. One to
> watch. You should consider an alliance.
> 
> www.gillespie.com
> 
> This site has Flash animation. Very fancy. But it takes approximately four
> minutes to load on a standard 56K connection. Fear not the Flash site. The
> HTML site is however quite powerful, offering  total contact branding,
> history and philosophy, portfolio and case studies, direct response, general
> marketing, public relatons, pharmaceutical marketing, magazine marketing,
> magazine marketing, e-commerce, and last but not least, employment. A force
> to be reckoned with or a bubbling sham? You tell me.
> 
> www.realpoetry.com
> 
> Realpoetry is perhaps the most serious threat to Newspoetry's market
> predominance. Realpoetry is "every poets voice to the world." Just think
> about that. While Newspoetry is working with a team of perhaps five, perhaps
> ten, perhaps twenty, maybe even one hundred global newspoets, Realpoetry has
> access to every single poet in the world. Act fast, Newspoets. The Realpoets
> site is "just a beta" but just think about what all of those poets, yes all
> of them, can do together in the face of the efforts of your ragtag band.
> Shit. It just occurred to me that you are working with them. And they are
> out of Seattle. Which is probably just code for Redmond. I throw up my
> hands. I give up.
> 
> 
> I will take my payment now. One hundred poems. All rights reserved.
> 
> Make your poetry more fecund, more virile, more real. More full of love,
> sex, gillespie and futrelle. Keep it real, man. There lies the path to
> riches. This is the best advice I can give you.
> 
> 
> Yours,
> 
> themarketingconsultant.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
--
Joe Futrelle
editor-on-chief
Newspoetry dot calm