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Friday, June 23 10:19 AM |
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Y2G Still Has Miles To Go.
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FUBU named their urban portal play, Y2G. Remember the when the year 2000 passed and it was so anti-climatic? Like nothing special happened at all? That's how you feel after visiting this pointless site.
The man calling the shots for the Y2G.com is John Copen, who created the original FUBU.com frame based site with its rotating gold logo. Some of John Copen's cutting edge work can be seen at Webscope (http://www.webscope.com). His work has been generally been sub-par, relying on a network of connections to dupe web un-savvy companies into using his services from Long Island. That is until he scored the big sweetheart deal to head up Y2G.com.
Y2G.com portal play begins with dumping a cool 1 million on agency.com to do the site. They delivered the usual assortment of uninspired digital content. The same me-too sort of ideas, that makes for bland websites. E-cards, digital sticks, stock quotes, chat, weather and the kitchen sink. Curiously, the site decided to have every category under the sun on the website with ratings and links to OTHER sites. Add in some over-designed eye-candy and some stories written on everything from sports to palm pilots that didn't change for the entire 10 months of the sites operation, and you have the reason for a boring site that never sees north of 10 people in its hidden chat rooms. A deal with the collapsing OnRadio for their Y2G branded streaming radio that they sell to everyone, rounds out the mediocre offerings. Again, we have a site ignoring commerce for content. It's probably better because shopping there is not an easy task. Pants floating in the air rotated in 3D with a busted zoom frame do not inspire you to purchase.
Y2G acquired strictlyhiphop.com, and added a new Flash layout with those annoying default sounds that ship with Flash. The site directly rips BET.com on-air promotional spots. (BET, hands down, has some of the best on-air promos in cable now.) Strictyhiphop.com is a good looking, well written site that offers nothing special over its competitors other than being buried deep in the Y2G.com site.
Y2G.com recently transformed itself into a broadband play. Launching a deal with CenterSeat.com (http://www.centerseat.com), people who come to the site can now look at boring video clips about the USS Intrepid and Dr. Gizmo (think 3-2-1 contact with a jerk). Y2G further lowers the bar with Jamie Levy's corny Cyberslacker, almost an exact carbon copy of her life, except that in the cartoon, she's not ugly. This cartoon is only interesting to all those other re-habbed sub-culture girls who sit in producer positions in new media companies. It was originally done in Flash, now we can't even see it in RealFlash. Try to enjoy an extremely pixilated version in Windows Media format.
CenterSeat licenses crappy content from all kinds of sources. Think of it as the clearinghouse for all the content from lame New Jersey filmmakers that iFilm and Atom Films wouldn't touch. This content is delivered in the middle of a popup window interface with a zillion buttons and everything stuffed into it and two big promotional areas that have product ads and factoids related to other products such as Oasis CDs or The Funky Boogie Bass. They even try to push DSL on you. The crap from LoadTV is better than this; at least it was its own technology. Y2G gets a revenue cut from sales, while diluting their brand and letting traffic hits flow toward CenterSeat. How is this better than promoting the sale of overpriced FUBU clothing items? What does this have to do with an Urban Portal? Nothing.
Enter Miles Rose: the Silicon Alley hustler and national Twinkie's salesman (regionaldelights.com). He was running a site called siliconalley.com and sponsored a directory of developers for the Alley. It was supposed to be sort of a New Media version of the NYPG. Thousands of dollars were handed over to Miles for advertisements, who in turn, never published the directory. It's so long ago; most people forgot that Miles took them for hundreds of dollars. It doesn't matter; Miles is back as director of new business development at Y2G.com and is all over the place. By the looks of the site, Miles has called back every business card he has collected since 1997. From Howard Greenstein (formerly MSFT) to Matt Carroll (IA), he has done deals with every company that has a plugin to offer, and licensed content from everyone he owes something to. Just because a deal is there, doesn't mean you should take it. It seems Miles measures success by the number of deal memo's turned into contracts. Miles is the guy you know smells like baloney sandwiches. He's the guy pestering you about some deal just as you approach the cutest girl in the conference, even when you are clearly giving him the signal to chill. He lures people to work there with offers of a free Y2G branded Samsung Yepp Mp3 player. Samsung, a Korean company, has an investment in FUBU, so that was a no-brainer. Those things cost about $5 a piece.
[Apology Note: UE staff erased two of Mr. Rose's chins for use in this story. To see all four chins, please visit FUBU in the Empire State Building.]
This is who FUBU has leading their "cutting edge Internet portal providing rich online multimedia content and services targeted toward the African-American community." If these are the kind of guys that are going to be at the next alternative party in St. Maarten, then you can keep your invites Fubu. We'll rock School of Hard Knocks this year.
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lol, that fubu fiasco in St, Marteen last year was a joke....they were lucky to fill up a night club.. |
For us by us = for us by them ...those guys are lucky if they bring home 15% of the pie |
sometimes when i repeat the word 'fubu' to myself like a thousand times, I see in my tiny mind a very fat arab wearing some genie shit. And it makes me wanna say...'FUBU!! FUBU!!' |
y2g is alright nothing special. there best of the web is a good idea, although I don't know how they come to some of their rankings. take for instance their best club site excludeswww.sfstation.com, the oldest and arguably best city/club guide in the states |
Y2G is the grand father template of the useless urban portal it set low standerds for unorginal content, rehashed ideas and lack of vision thats were soon to be followed by Hookt and 360
watch em fall
my favorite moment was watching damian and those boobs presenting at that fiasco the online hip hop awards and promising that next year "well be back"
yeah sure if you get aquired by UBO |
Don't critcize Y2G.... write a business plan and set-up a meeting!
You have to remember... a year ago there wasn't much interest in urban internet... UBO, Places Of Color, and 360 (then RS1W) were just business plans...
We (us in the urban internet biz) are just guinea pigs. The brightest stars will be posting messages here in a year... the rest well...
If you want to talk about urban portals... what happened to HIPHOPHUT?
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I feel that Keith Clinkscales is behind this site. |
can't we all just get along? |
I am hoping that this site will bring relevant messages and information to those interested in the urban internet/new media business.
Criticism is great if it is constructive and an honest assessment. I was hoping this site would allow users to have honest discussion and feedback. This site should inspire discussion about strenghts and weaknesses and further this industry and those interested in being a part of it...
To date we have lived up to our "crabs in the barrell" mentality.
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Okay it's gannsberg again, and I was wondering, what's up with the subpar performance with everyone's flash player. I know it's not my capabilities, b/c i have a t-3 connection (government is real) so what the deal...the whole reason i ask is b/c I am trying to put together a site (no comment on content just creating buzz) and I was toying with the idea of a flash, but god forbid I do that shit and get blasted up in here for having a shitty flash!!!!anyway i am going to read more of the stuff you guys post in hopes of finding a site worth emulating tee hee
as always, jackin for sites but you aint heard that from me
gannsberg
(trying to be the most cloutingest type up in this piece) |
hey lennin you stoopid ass, Andy james platnum put this site up and thats why dash and them slapped him up.
Let the truth prevail that Keith Clinkscales, James Andrews nor UBO are behind this site. you lie
my girl up at ubo said them porto recanz at latenflava sed dis thair syte 4 markteting ecommerses
hoo dat fat guy
from ubo?
i mean the fat guy in the pitcha abuv
he look like sum fat face ubo proto recanthem proto recans greedy motherfukka
thay site look like shitgo 2 dat pitcha
dont that shit look like he sayn "ay im prezdent uv latenflava" |
This whole thing reeks of inside WWWAC list/Alley people. Agency/Rose, oh man.
If they had hired one player, one person who knew the deals in the Alley, FUBU would have avoided that whole crowd.
I know of or have met every person you named in this story and I'm shaking my head.
All they needed was Marisa Bowe and Michael Wolff for the played out, old school Alley trifecta. |
yo fubu dudu
for us by us...man FUK U!
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oh yea, you talk about great sites...how bout getting a decent bbs script to run this shit so we dont have to wait 30 seconds after posting!
im on isdn! |
do me a favor and get that fat fuckers pix removed...who the fuck is he? |
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