Is Jason Calacanis riding on Leo Laporte and the TWiT networks coat tails?
And of course now we have this wonderful new twitquestions.com. Which may turn out to be a great tool for listeners to ask question and interact with the show. I hope it can be, because I can not keep up with a chat room of over 1,000 people.
I just wonder what Leo and team really think about all this?
I know Jason has mad respect for Leo and the TWiT network. But has he gone too far? Serious question. Not trying to be flame bait.
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M$7 Answers
Also, there are sooooo many verticals and ways to name these shows that I think we will not be overlapping. My guess is we will grow from five to 10 or 15 shows a year from now. We will also have a sale force built out soon. When that happens my hope is that when we get an advertiser/sponsor we could syndicate across both of our networks.
Leo has said over and over that he doesn't own the This Week In... format and that he loves what I'm doing. If he had a problem with it I would certainly work it out with him.
Right now we're both building very experimental businesses and we're good friends who like working together. There really isn't more to it than that.
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M$
Leo has if nothing else, squatters rights to the naming scheme, and Jason as much as legally acknowledged Leo's squatters rights by approaching Leo to ask if he wouldn't mind if Jason were to create the This Week In Startups podcast. Jason, is now the unsupervised greedy little kid in the candy store, and is stuffing his mouth, his cheeks, backpack, and pockets with all of Leo's candy.
Leo should have kicked butt when Twitter emerged, and should hire barristers to defend his castle from pretenders to the throne, who are sneaking into the back door of the castle, and stealing his lunch! "TWI" is Leo's lifeblood and he is now suffering death by a thousand cuts.
Julius Caesar had Brutus, and Leo Laporte may yet have occasion to say of his friend "Et tu, Calacanis".
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M$I'm sure Leo had the same impression. Now, instead, it is the "This Week In" tech podcast network. Not to be confused with the "This Week in Tech" podcast network. Sheesh!
Now I look at the site and it looks like Jason's personal page, promoting his shows and not listing any other shows. Where is This Week in Photography with Alex Lindsay? Or This Week in Barron's? Or This Week in YouTube?
To me it seems like he is acting like a third grader who has been caught doing something he knows is wrong but there's some loophole he can weasel through to avoid "being in trouble".
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M$
Nope: I said over and over to Leo I would be doing some shows AND a directory. There at 500 possible shows you could build and neither Leo or I will break 25 or 30 I predict. That means we will each MAYBE take 5% of the market for shows.
there is plenty of room for everyone, and everyone can succeed forever.
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M$
I voted your answer down because it didn't answer the question or really
even give an opinion. You said yes he is riding Leo's coat tales. Then went off on a rant that has nothing to do with the subject of Jason, Leo, and the TWiT network. It was more of an attack on Jason personally. This is Mahalo answers not Mahalo opinions.
Seriously, this is ridiculous. Why are you voting me down for expressing an honest opinion which is shared by many among the tech crowd. No need to go all fanboi on us just because we hit the nerve right there, obviously! Rather than vote us down you could engage in developping some arguments. This thought seems to have evaded your fanboism completely, and instead you opted for the childish route. Fair enough! It only renders the Mahalo answers community useless at the end of the day, which by the way is self evident anyway. After all the only people distributing M$ are Mahalo staff members who got their credits to incentivise the system. That system, however, has remained a closed culture ecosystem. Also, as VC involved in Mahalo funding we'd be worried about Jason spending so much time on side projects (OAF, This Week In, etc.). It's clearly a sign that Jason should have remained in the publishing business. That's what he does best. Entepreneurshipwise he's not even a Kevin Rose.
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M$
Here again, Jason is correct the market is wide open. But to literally take the brand that Leo has built up and allow him to dilute it is not Jason's fault, it's Leo being extremely naive. Is Jason being a good friend? He may think so, but I would run from a friend that copies my IP so blatantly that search engines, iTunes,and all can't differentiate the two.
Also, Jason knows that Leo's Network has not hit main stream, so Jason could still own the brand despite Leo's being a first mover. If that happens and of course its exactly what he wants to do. Leo's work in TWIT will be for most purposes over. When money is on the line, no one named Apple would allow an Apple Also inc to exist...
Thus the answer to the question is not is Jason riding anyone's coat-tails. Its Jason who has seen a viable market, and is replicating it to the very noun and syllable of what Leo has done.
This in my opinion is good business on some levels. My IP attorney would disagree here. But that said, I think this move by Jason is cheap, gutless, and unimaginative.
Why not name it anything... Gosh I don't know.. Mahalo TV Tech Edition, gosh why not build that Brand up... Oops he has TWITLIVE Podcasts at the bottom.. No Leo there... That service is useless BTW... Why else would anyone let a CEO do more projects? Does he have VC in a coma?
Please don't take gutless personally. He hates Facebook, Leo Leaves it but Jason "Amoral" Facebook guy stays.. What do you say about that kind of guy? Content Farming? He's there too.. Check it out... Useless, uniformed, uneducated web spam? Jason's your guy...
I am just waiting for the Porn... Come on Jason the water's warm.. And its great business, and I am sure Leo won't mind..
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M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Thank you Jason for your response. I was pretty sure you and Leo were on the same page.
Although I wouldn't call the TWiT network experimental. I would call it pioneering. It's well rooted and not going anywhere soon. Unless Leo decides to take TWiT down himself. Much like Steve Jobs is the only one who can really knock Apple off it's track to continued success.
Be the way, loving these Mahalo verticals. Much more targeted than the general Mahalo answers. Good luck!
I like Leo's shows a lot, but overall, I think Jason's are more interesting. Conventional wisdom says that the person with the headstart in a space has the advantage, and yet, in the long term, I'd probably bet on Jason creating slightly more entertaining products that Leo.