SocialNext

Britney Spears Taking the Web, Her Fans, Seriously

According to TechCrunch Britney Spears’ team has posted a “Web 2.0 Media Manager” job on a Harvard-only private job board.

It’s a smart move to have someone manage these 2.0 networks (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) full time and build relationships with fans. I know the most growth my comedy group’s MySpace saw was when I was commenting on people's MySpaces randomly and leaving comments with Friend Requests. The only problem is that it's a real full time job and I already have one! It just became too much but that’s the commitment you have to make if you’re going to grow your online presence.

The internet is an information vacuum and giving her fans more photos, stories, videos and news will only pay off in the long run. Plus, it will hopefully create a place for her fans to go and learn what’s really going on with Britney as opposed to relying on the popular gossip blogs like TMZ or Perez Hilton that have treated her pretty poorly in the past few years.

Can a YouTube Competitor Land Perez Hilton?

Last December YouTube suspended popular gossip blogger Perez Hilton’s account. Perez had one of the most popular YouTube channels and participated in their “Partner Program”.

YouTube was slow to get a straight answer to Perez as to why his account was suspended and, justifiably, he was pretty darn mad. The result was Perez ditching YouTube for his own streaming video setup, PerezTV.

YouTube's lack of customer service (even for Partner participants!) is their Achilles Heel and resulted in a big fish getting away. The bottom line is this is a huge missed opportunity for a second-tier video site like Veoh, LiveVideo or Metacafe. They could have gained massive publicity from a pop culture trend setter and seen a huge jump in usage and accounts.

The opportunity is still there. Perez doesn’t seem to be monetizing PerezTV yet and if offered a sweetheart revenue sharing deal could still change over to a hosted platform.