Where Revision3’s Social Brew Went Wrong

Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback finally put the last nail in the coffin for the IPTV’s latest effort, Social Brew. If you don’t know what Social Brew was, it was a show dedicated to covering social networks on a weekly basis such as Twitter, Zune Social, Facebook, etc. When the show debuted, I wondered how anyone could possibly sustain a weekly show on social networks, so I decided to see for myself by subscribing to it via Zune Marketplace. From episode one, I had a feeling that Social Brew was doomed for failure.

Non-compelling and/or Mismatched Hosts

Social Brew’s main host was Irene McGee of Real World Seattle fame. I thought it was an odd choice from the beginning, but I definitely felt it wasn’t the wisest of choices after watching episode one. One thing I noticed about McGee was that she seemed uncomfortable and nervous on camera. She talked – a whole lot – with her hands, which I spent more time watching (in annoyance) than listening to what she was saying. She also had an irritating tendency to ramble, make things about her, and take over the conversion, which she did improve upon in future episodes. I know some viewers also held the “Stephen incident” against her, which turned into a minor controversy on Rev3’s forums. I’m also aware that some people just didn’t think she had enough “geek cred” to host the show, but it wasn’t as if she was hosting Systm, people. Personally, I found that McGee, aside from the other annoyances, just wasn’t interesting as a host and lacked the “it” factor.

I can say the same for co-hosts Johnny Hwin and Neha Tiwari (who was actually good on Tekzilla). While I felt they were better hosts than McGee, I found them mostly boring whenever they were on camera. They primarily lacked a “spark” whenever they were discussing topics for their segments, which made me wonder if they really liked what they were doing. The only exception was Moujon Z. whose personality stood out and whose comic relief was the best thing about the show; however, I felt that in some ways, she didn’t belong on Social Brew. Moujon was the extreme opposite among all of her co-hosts, which made it even more obvious that she was neon pink and everyone else was just beige in terms of on-screen personality.

Lack of On-Screen Chemistry

I’m a “smart” TV/film viewer who looks deeper than most average viewers. So I know that on-screen chemistry is either something you have right away (Tekzilla with Patrick Norton and Veronica Belmont), is something that eventually comes (The GigaOm Show with Om Malik and Joyce Kim), or it just never happens. Based on the four episodes I watched, I felt that Social Brew’s hosts fell into the later two categories. As a viewer, on-screen chemistry is extremely important and can be a compelling reason to watch a show, aside from the content. The only Social Brew hosts that had any on-screen chemistry together was Moujon and McGee, oddly enough. However, whenever McGee was paired with anyone else, the chemistry was lacking or non-existent.

Redundancy Victim

For me, Social Brew offered redundancy by covering social networks because the information covered was on a number of influential technology blogs. In fact, I read about the majority of the social networks featured on Social Brew through my blog subscriptions. I also felt that the topics they covered could have been handled in a short segment on The GigaOm Show, which leads me into another example of redundancy.

If The GigaOm Show were king, then consider Social Brew its unwanted child spawned by a peasant maiden. While I’m aware The GigaOm Show leans towards the entrepreneur, Social Brew’s coverage of social networks had more relevance on The GigaOm Show. There’s already too much redundancy on the Internet, and it’s definitely unnecessary to have it on the same IPTV network.

Flawed Premise

All other issues aside, the premise of Social Brew was flawed from the very beginning. Rev3 seemed to produce a show covering social networks simply because most of their viewers are on social networks. That doesn’t mean the audience wanted a show dedicated to social networking and the random tweets on people’s Twitter feeds. If I want to read tweets, I can easily go to Twitter or get the RSS feed for the public timeline. I don’t need to see screenshots of “interesting tweets” on a weekly video podcast. The same can be said about Social Brew’s weekly solicitation of people’s Zune Social profiles and any other social network.

I sincerely believe that Social Brew only existed because Rev3 viewers, including me, filled out their survey a few months ago. If true, that in itself made Social Brew’s foundations flawed. It was a vehicle to harness a “massive” audience of social networking users, which Rev3 could leverage into more revenue. The show wasn’t about people with a genuine passion for something they love (The Totally Rad Show). It was a show derived from a survey, something that many viewers immediately noticed and pounced on. Once Rev3 had a full backlash on their hands, they tried to tweak the show to save it, but you can’t save something that has huge flaws in its foundation. The cracks in that foundation only widened, and Louderback, seeing that, wisely pulled the plug. If Rev3 had recognized the problems with Social Brew from the beginning, perhaps the collateral damage could have been prevented.