Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

It just might start a trend. USA Network is the about to become the first TV broadcaster to launch a social networking site. Why risk acquiring one of the remaining smaller players like Hi5.com or Tribe.net, when you can build your own experience from scratch?

Showusyourcharacter.com, currently in beta, combines elements of traditional social networking sites (personal profiles, music and video uploads) with elements from fansites, focused here on USA’s stable of shows, including “Monk”, “Nashville Star”, and the WWE.

USA runs a mixture of original programming, action-drama re-runs, and mainstream movies. I call it the Law and Order Channel.

The social networking site is a clever tie-in to their current branding campaign, which makes a virtue of USA’s schizophrenic programming: “Characters Welcome”.  According to press materials, the most unusual character from the site’s profiles will be the center of a web series and star in a national on-air campaign.

The irony is that General Electric, USA Network’s parent company, has a number of other cable properties that would be much better suited to be content hubs for social networks.  With the exception of wrestling, which is carried on multiple competing channels, USA doesn't have shows that inspire real fandom.  And they attract older viewers who are much less likely to participate in a social networking site. 

What about the  fiercely loyal fans of Bravo’s “Project Runway” or the Sci-Fi Channel’s “Battlestar Galactica”, two other GE properties which would have been much better candidates?  But kudos to USA for being the first to test the social networking waters.

Misha Cornes