FrenchMaid’s show how to register a domain
Oh boy. When I heard about French Maids at the Podcasting Expo last week I had no idea what their show was about. Let’s just say this is a show aimed at the male half of the gender side. Oh, and GoDaddy paid for this show about how to register a domain. This is pretty darn close to soft porn. But, it did cause lots of conversations on the floor of the podcasting expo. They also are one of the top podcasts on iTunes. Which just goes to show you: nothing sells like sex.
Oh, if you want a more serious report from the Podcasting Expo, check out Podonomics report. Leesa Barnes reports and includes interviews from Tim Bourquin, founder of the Podcast and Portable Media Expo and Ron Moore, executive producer of Battlestar Gallactica. Leesa’s report is excellent. Listen to what she says about Adam Curry and Podshow too. They are a competitor of ours, so I won’t say anything, but Leesa has a good point and one I heard many times from the show floor.
In his interview, Tim Bourquin talked about the Apple Computer cease and desist letters that were sent to companies using “pod” in their product names. John Welch gave me crud about sensationalizing that last week, trying to make it look like Apple was coming after all podcasting companies. That’s a fair criticism. Tim handles it a lot better in his interview.
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October 2nd, 2006 at 8:27 pm
So of all expos not to podcast their sessions, the podcast expo doesn’t podcast their sessions? That’s the heighth of lame.
October 2nd, 2006 at 8:36 pm
Brad: they will be podcast. It takes time to deal with that much audio.
October 2nd, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Nonsense Robert. According to you, video and audio podcasts take no more time than recording and uploading.
Editing, cleaning, these are not things for audio and video podcasts. Record, and upload, that’s all you do, right?
Or, maybe you were being a *tad* optimistic in your claims of “record and upload is all you need!”?
October 2nd, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Oh yeah…and dude, there are a metric tonne of women who appreciate the goofy-ness that is French Maid TV. It’s not really that seeeexy unless you’re like, 12.
And pretty darn close to soft core porn? Dude, how long HAVE you been living on Sesame Street? If you ever are in France again, do stay away from the beaches. Hell, stay away from South Beach or Malibu beach for that matter, your head will explode.
October 2nd, 2006 at 11:02 pm
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October 3rd, 2006 at 12:35 am
John: when I visit beaches like the one you say they don’t prance around like that, nor do they give suggestive visits in beds. One thing you might try doing someday is visiting Salt Lake City and seeing how this stuff plays there.
October 3rd, 2006 at 12:37 am
John: and it often takes me days to get around to blogging and/or uploading things too. In fact, right now my ScobleShow is running three weeks behind. But, glad you’re there to catch every last “T” and dot every last “I” on my blog.
October 3rd, 2006 at 12:48 am
Robert,
I don’t know, Apple’s claim of “brand confusion” seems a bit overstated and a blanket clause for them to take out anything with the word POD in it. Does this mean that PODSmobile storage will have to change its name? Or I was in a home goods store and saw a hook that uses a suction cup to hang on a smooth surface. It was called a POD. Neither of these have anything remotely to do with electronics even, but by their definition of “brand confusion” aka, the ceise and deceits orders already issued, these too would be included.
Stop this meglomania of corporations.
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:33 am
Independent media is great - lets remember why we want it and love it. The Frenchmaids show makes me laugh - a harmless 3 minute video that makes people chuckle must be a winner (at least with the boys). More power to their dusters!
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:06 am
Robert..
I live in Kansas City. Missouri. On the border of ohh….KANSAS. I’m going to hazard a guess that I am FAR more familiar with what conservative middle america thinks than you are with your occaisional forays out of your SillyValley TechWomb. It still ain’t soft-core porn dude.
I also grew up in Miami. South Beach was my very bestest friend, especially when I would come home on leave during Persian Gulf 1, and I will tell you categorically that they do indeed “prance around like that” there, and then some. So I’ve got just a wee bit of personal, long term experience ther too.
As well, you were the one with the whole line on “Just to taunt all those “videoblogging is too hard” types. Posting this was as easy as pulling out my podcasting computer and recording. In fact, to me, it was easier cause my camera is a lot easier to carry around town than my computer is. Note: no editing. Just took video here and uploaded it to Blip.TV ”
Yes. Creating noisy, grainy, hard to listen to and even harder to follow video is simple. however, creating audio and video that is worth watching, and looks good, (not professional grade, but just good) actually takes some time. If it didn’t take any time, you’d not be behind, now would you?
Perhaps if you didn’t let your enthusiasm override common sense and reality, you’d not look as silly.
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:15 am
Send the French maids to do the advertisements for the MSN video crew. You can have a good chuckle while you are waiting for the forced down your throat advertising to finish before viewing your selected content.
How about the best of the best. Be selective on what gets on your site.
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:40 am
Personally, I find the FMTV concept rather amusing. By European standards it is certainly not soft porn. Obviously it won’t work for any demongraphic, but then it is highly targeted and I’d be surprised to find a single guy who doesn’t consider it at least mildy entertaining. The goofyness is another aspect - I’ll poll my female friends, my guess is that they’ll think it’s funny.
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:12 am
Here’s a guy that finds it insulting to read that fmtv is targeted at me. I say it certainly misses the mark.
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:49 am
Speaking of crossing t’s and dotting i’s…
Why the apostrophe in “French Maid’s show how to register a domain”?
Perhaps you meant “French Maid’s show shows how to register a domain”.
:-)
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:24 am
If ever there was a better example of commercial exploitation of a (video) podcast, it’s French Maid TV. Within 3 episodes, they were already devoting an entire show to an (obviously sponsored) online bartering site, and now, a full 3 and a half months after that last sponsored episode, their next full new episode is yet another piece of sponsored content. On top of that, their web site has more than the usual amount of ads than similar video podcast sites do.
You can’t really blame them. I honestly think that this is what the French Maids were created to be. I doubt it was ever primarily about creating funny content that would stand on its own. It was conceived as a marketing vehicle from day 1.
October 3rd, 2006 at 1:59 pm
They can market to me as often as they like.
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Explode? Head? Movies?
Works for me…
October 3rd, 2006 at 3:24 pm
[...] Today I got a remarkable example. Godaddy (my beloved host) paid for this step by step tutorial on how to register a domain. Thinking of the same old tutorial? Think again: “teachers” are the nice gals at FrenchmaidTV and the whole thing is almost a soft porn video. This has been commented on Scrobleizer and got a lot of buzz for that. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love porn, and I especially liked the scene when the cute french kitties crush big wood sticks (really!) in pieces. But the point here is not that nothing sells like sex (that seems to be Robert’s idea). The point is that GoDaddy got much more buzz this way than spending millions in a TV or press campaign, and gained a lot of trust as well for being original and nice. A couple of random thoughts: [...]
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Please visit my blog at http://johntp.com for TechNews, Reviews and other Great stuff
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:55 pm
The podcasts are coming. Just because it is a podcast, John, doesn’t mean we have to upload crummy audio with no post-production (adjusting microphone audio levels, editing out 2-3 minutes of crowd noise before the session starts, etc, etc.)
I’d rather wait a few days and get nice audio that doesn’t get in the way of the content of the session.
Tim Bourquin
October 3rd, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Oh I completely agree Tim. In fact, it’s nice to see someone being realistic about the time it takes to take raw audio and turn it into something that’s pleasant to listen to.
Robert was the one on the “It’s as easy as record and upload” kick.
October 3rd, 2006 at 8:54 pm
John, I agree with some of what you say, but I’m not sure why you are so zealous in your comments to Robert. You seem to be making a hobby of mocking him. Why?
October 3rd, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Dude…first, i really don’t even come close to replying to every post Robert puts up. Just the ones that attract my attention. That can be more or less, depending on how much Robert’s being a Snap-on. When he’s in full tool mode, he gets hammered more. When he’s being reasonable, or talking about crap that I could care less about, then I don’t feel the interest in smacking him upside the head. When he’s being a silly prat, and just Dvoraking, well, then he gets smacked, and I’m far from the only one, or the most prolific.
Most of his posts are of the “blogosphere” circle-jerk OMGBLOGSRMAGIC!!111 variety, which is so patently silly that no comment is needed, and I don’t. A large chunk of the rest are of no interest to me, so I don’t comment.
But when he’s on? Like this comment in his “Why do I love Engadget?” Post:
“But, Microsoft is brave enough to invite me and my camera over for an interview and demo this week. That is something that Apple hasn’t yet done. I guess Steve Jobs is scared that I’ll give him crap for not putting a widescreen into the latest iPods.”
I know that in Robert’s world, the sky is pink, and he has a legion of sycophants to make sure he shakes after taking a leak, but in the real world, well, Apple doesn’t care about him. If they want to talk to a someone in the media, the go to Mossberg. Pogue. People that someone OUTSIDE of the SillyValley TechCircleJerk reads. Microsoft isn’t being “brave” by inviting him over, they’re desparate for positive attention.
Even then, (and I’ll point this out in the comments), Robert can’t be bothered with silly things like, oh, accuracy:
I guess Steve Jobs is scared that I’ll give him crap for not putting a widescreen into the latest iPods.
If he’s trying to say the Zune has a widescreen, he’s smoking crack…again. It has a *wider* screen than the iPod, but the same number of pixels as the iPod so the resolution is actually not as good as the iPods, because the same number of pixels in a larger area == not as sharp a picture. If he isn’t implying that, then he’s being a prat. I can put an iPod 80Gb in my pocket and listen all day. Try that with a standard pair of men’s jeans and a PSP. Lemme know how that feels when you sit down somewhere crowded. Like a Bus. Not that Robert rides the bus. But for the rest of us, it’s an important factor.
but of course, when Robert’s making sure that we all know he’s A-List, well, screw everything else. Look, you want to buy into his shuck and jive, I’m a goofy innocent act, by all means. But he’s really masterful at personal deception in the name of personal PR. Nothing wrong with that, but don’t try to tell me that his passive-agressive posting cycles are sincere, because they’re too consistant to be anything but contrived. He’s due for another OMGTEHINTERNETSRMEAN set of posts pretty soon.
I just treat him like he comes across…a PR shill.
October 4th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
See here re Apple and their “cease and Desist’ over the word / term “pod “. Apart from the prior art (heh heh), it seems oddly appropriate considering what they’re trying to do.
October 5th, 2006 at 10:05 am
I’ve heard French Maid TV compared to Benny Hill, which I think is an accurate comparison. Pornography? Nope. There’s no sex, no nudity, just gratuitous T&A played for comedy.
The Man Show. Baywatch. These shows sell sex on a general level. I’m not sure what the big deal is.
I’m happy to spend four minutes with the maids. They can show me how to buy groceries if its this consistently entertaining.
October 6th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
Come on Robert. Benny hill like I agree with, but close to soft porn?
Wikipedia: softcore does not depict explicit sexual contact but may include nudity and simulation of intercourse.
No nudity here and definitely could not be considered explicit. Its clean fun and a bit of a tease.
October 10th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
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