Hugh Hefner Discovers Internet, Thinks its Cool
By Jeff Hilimire on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I try to give new technology a chance, I really do. And I usually credit companies for trying things, for sticking their necks out there, for attempting to innovate. But when I saw that Playboy was launching their own social networking site…well lets just say I can’t hold my tongue on this one.
On the Playboy U website, they describe the site as “an exclusive college-only non-nude social network. Here is where you can show your school pride, connect with other students and celebrate the social side of college.”
Finally, its here! A website where college kids can network with each other. It’s going to be a Golden Age! Why didn’t I think of that? Oh wait, I did think of that, a few minutes ago when I updated my Facebook status. You know Facebook, one of the most visited sites on the web. The one that was started in early 2004, and according to Wikipedia, has “the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites with over 34 million active members worldwide”.
And I’ve been thinking about all the reasons this won’t work but the biggest reason is very simple: females largely detest Playboy. At least the females I know. Heck, most females can’t stand Hooters, let alone Playboy. So getting females to sign up for this will probably be impossible. So then there are just the guys. Why do guys use social networks? Especially college guys? It’s not to chit-chat with their buddies. It’s to meet girls. College guys pretty much have three things on their minds, and they’re all called, “meet girls”.
What’s funny is, when I read this I assumed the the Playboy headquarters must be in some place like Big Piney, Wyoming (no offense to all of our Big Pineyian readership - we’re huge there). But no, Playboy HQ is in Chicago. So they should know better.
Yeah, this is going to be a big winner.
Wow. I’m so confused.
Did Playboy really need to do something to reach a demographic of young, college-age men?
I want to compare this to Calvin Klein’s IN2U cologne/perfume campaign … they’re both just trying too hard.
Message to Playboy: Young men already like you.
Jeff, Jeff, Jeff.
You aren’t actually predicting that something involving sex on the Internet is going to fail, are you?
Sure, their PR says “…non-nude social network…” but I highly doubt that will be the case.
Besides, even if it doesn’t become a hit with young men, 30-50 year-olds will probably be breaking down the gate to get in.
I guess we’ll just have to ask Donovan how it is when it launches.
Not so sure… 1) Never doubt Heff. 2) I think we in the over 30 set would be completely surprised at how many cheeze-nuggets and tartlets would think this is cool. On Long Island, no strange land to tiger print work out pants, anything with the Bunny logo will sell. Bad launch, but they’ll get this right.
I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree with you Dan. While Hugh has been quite successful in the adult entertainment industry…I don’t think that this will be that big of a hit.
Yeah, I’m sure some tartlets will think it’s cool, but they’re already on MySpace and/or Facebook posting pictures and video of themselves - so why move everything to another site? Chances are most of their friends are also on MySpace and/or Facebook and don’t have a desire to duplicate efforts on another site.
In looking at the landing page to request an invite, they list the services available for members and there’s maybe one that doesn’t exist on Facebook, which a large majority of college students have profiles with.
The only thing going for this site is that it requires you to request an invite (for now…) using an .edu email address, which could be helpful in preventing “old dudes or your Mom” from joining as they say on their page. But thanks to privacy settings on other networking sites - you can prevent both old dudes and your mom from looking at your profile.
When it comes to social networking, we’re at a point where there are two very successful sites for this age demographic. If you want to have a presence with them, you should go to them, not try and bring them to you.