A Lesson in Domain Branding
I read an editorial by an archconservative columnist today bemoaning the lost cause of moderate conservatism. My instinct was not to empathize with the author but to investigate the target of his arrows, a website and individual called Breitbart.com. How could a liberal news bonfire like Breitbart’s apparatus dig such a pit under a conservative observer like David Klinghoffer and get it wrong?
It’s hard to believe that the National Review is as compelling reading or exciting journalism as many original news blogs, but the author persists in his shibboleths. When Huffingtonpost.com started, few people could stomach a woman whose main claim to fame seemed to be losing an expensive gubernatorial campaign with her somewhat estranged husband.
A visit to Breitbart.com does not elicit the “oohs” and “aaahs” of a CNN style media outlet. Nor does it salaciously tabloid up any items a la the New York Post or OMG.com. But what is fetching about Breitbart.com is that it is extremely impactful to experience a new media outlet whose brisk data signals are not generated by mainstream profit making. Breitbart.com is an example of making a portal and destination out of your own real surname.
Breitbart is hardly a household name. It is not a noun or a verb nor is it a keyword hybrid or name referrer to any known category in the extremely competitive world of “name” domains. Yet Breitbart.com has enough presence as a brand to stand for the “low” and outre media extreme at the end of the news outlet pantheon. This type of blog generally receives little fanfare.
The world of words is not a timid one, and this author couldn’t be unconscious of the honor he was paying Breitbart (.com). Just guiding online or print keyboard jockeys to web surf to a new destination is the kind of advice and counsel marketing firms are racking their brains to come up with. And I hadn’t even heard of the site before the chance catch of Klinghoffer’s article.
Klinghoffer claims the National Review is still readable. “Vital” and ‘interesting’ mean different things to different people. I doubt the National Review is destination daily reading for anyone who doesn’t have a vested interest in blogging it, reviewing it, cribbing it or is concerned in an article. While its past relevance is undiminished and certainly historic, it is a dinosaur whose text preaches to a tiny choir located among a globeful of singers.
Unless you live in John Updike country, neocons aren’t criminals. They’re relatives, friends and neighbors. I doubt anyone releasing published news online via their own portal strives for a political resonance first, news value second. To shape an impression of a news portal with custom video tags and headlines “crazy” simply peppers the pot with name calling where none is warranted.
And so we’re back to the neocon crunching. If Klinghoffer had wanted to “bury the lead’ he might have left many details of the crazy neoconservative news channel’s identity absent or the url unmentioned. Instead he gives focused free publicity to his stated opposition’s website? By any definition, that is web strategy with a …twist. Klinghoffer gives Breitbart.com reams of free P. R. in the guise of critiquing his site offering.
The effect of contemporary media is so ingrained the conditioning takes a while to wear off. Starting a new media outlet and polishing an offering to suit a cross hatch of online searchers and visitors takes guts, considering the competitors. The journalism media is full of reports how print journalism is dying.
Klinghoffer’s article practically begged any reader to take a look at the Breitbart site and judge for themselves. Yet the coverage did not differ in tone or object so radically to note any such contrasting effect as Klinghoffer suggested would be present. I found the Breitbart.com news offerings fresh and untainted by slant and advertising spin. And I would have been surprised if anyone had suggested there was a portal online I hadn’t gotten scent of.
From this point forward, Breitbart.com might be one of the sites I check out when something big is happening to get the third or fourth media perspective. This is a strongly branded domain providing useful and sticky content to readers and visitors. How Klinghoffer could have promoted his rival yet claimed to criticize them in the same article is a matter left to…magazines like the National Review.
