As revealed on my wikinomics post that went up this morning, I’m fascinated by the different ways that the NBA, it’s teams, and it’s players are engaging with social media. My hometown team is the Toronto Raptors, and by extension I tend to follow what Chris Bosh – NBA superstar / web 2.0 fanatic – is up to online. But as I engaged in my “research” I came across a few stories about Kobe Bryant’s website. Most weren’t particularly flattering, and focused mostly on the “premium access” fee – about $25 – required for accessing the “exclusive content”. While I agree with most of the criticisms, I think a lot of organizations can learn from looking at all the differences between how Kobe and Chris represent themselves on their home pages.
As a starting point, Chris Bosh’s site seems to be focused on a mixture of promoting himself and connecting with fans. You are immediately hit with information about his new recording contract, and an invite to download his iPhone app (yes, you read that correctly). Follow through to his site and you find access to his blog, photos, tv channel, links to his presence on other social media sites, some exclusive events, and “locker nerd” (supposed to be a haven for techies and sports geeks, but it’s a dead link). You can also send him a question directly if you want. Interestingly, some Google ads are present – featured prominently at the top of the page. Most of them are Raptors related, including some peculiar ones (“talk basketball sports and more with Kapono fans” – noting Kapono wasn’t good enough to have many fans, and isn’t a Raptor anymore. Bad Google ad targeting strikes again).
In contrast, Kobe Bryant’s site seems to be focused on promoting the products he endorses. Go to the site and you’re immediately hit with a full page ad / contest from Vitamin Water. Then an (odd) congratulations to himself (note, not his team, or teammates – a congratulations to Kobe. Makes it feel far less personal than the messages from Bosh, for example). Then an ad for his Nike shoe. Anytime you open a new page, the full screen Vitamin water ad hits you again. And again. And again.
Bosh’s site seems focused on getting you to connect. Kobe’s seems to focus on getting you to pay for access. The content on Kobe’s page is mainly links to stuff he’s doing on mainstream media (Fox Business, Teen Choice Awards). Chris’ page is mainly links to new stuff he’s created for the site. Even the stuff that appears a LITTLE behind the scenes on Kobe’s home page is reprinted from the Nike Basketball site. And of course, if you want to check out the “community”, you have to pay.
There’s a lot more you could get into than that, and of course various caveats around Kobe’s (say) endorsement deals need to be considered. But overall, it’s very to say that Kobe is taking a very “old media” approach to using the Web 2.0 – big, in your face broadcast ads dominate, and the whole focus is on getting money from you directly. Bosh is taking a more open, collaborative, experimental approach – which has both good sides (cool content) and bad (frequent dead links, slightly less “professional”/ clean presentation).
Overall, I think the latter approach is far better – and not just because it’s “nicer”. Even if the underlying objective is to make money, there are a lot of different avenues to do so. Finding creative ways to get fans connected and involved (ala Bosh) creates such opportunities; making it hard for them to do so / force feeding them ads / making them pay up front limits such options in exchange for relatively minimal revenue (assuming few will bother to pay for access). In other words, if Kobe is interested in making money through his online presence, both directly and indirectly, I think he could learn a thing or two from Bosh. And if he’s not, he definitely can learn from him.
And please – spare me any jokes about what Bosh can learn from Kobe on the basketball court. Raptors fans are a long-suffering lot, so have some mercy 
.
Now off for another technology-free vacation – back in about a week.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
great read.
Hiya. You might be interested in this – twittering chants. Article from TechCrunch. The hash tag is gonna take up most of your 140 characters – guess thats all that needs to be said. Could be a way to teach newbies to the game, their team’s chants.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/28/vaynermedia-is-bringing-sports-chants-to-twitter/
My man Campbell – equally adept at helping get a wedding set up AND finding me cool stories for work. Thanks for the link – hope things are well back “home”.