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Newspoetry Market Competition Report
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.
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.
Oldpoetry is not yet taken. This represents a huge opportunity for an enterprising poetry maven.
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.
Erotic poetry is available. A market opportunity for Newspoetry.
is an alias for Web Predator, a web design firm.
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?
news.com is owned by CNET, which covers technology. They've very little headway into the poetry market.
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?
This is the website of one Jacques Futrelle, an up and coming writer. One to watch. You should consider an alliance.
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.
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.
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