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Most TV shows have their own website these days, but now, turning the tables, some websites are actually spawning their own TV shows. Case in point: Classmates.com, a website where school friends, lovers, prospective lovers and even enemies look to reacquaint themselves, recently got its own reality TV show, in cooperation with News Corp’s Twentieth Television. Each segment of the show will feature one person looking for a long lost acquaintance, old lover or kindergarten friend. The searchee won’t know who is trying to contact them, and the show will profile the people separately, leading up to their reunion. The business angle? Classmates.com’s 35 million registered users, who not only provide the show’s content (Classmates.com claims to generate about 300 to 500 possible story leads a day), but also represent a massive number of potential viewers and a source of ‘buzz’. Which is what all networks are after, anyway. Classmates is not the only one expanding from cyberspace to air waves: – Celebrity crime Web site The Smoking Gun is creating two half-hour shows for broadcast on cable channel Court TV (due to air in August), joining a genre of popular gotcha shows like ‘Cops’. The Smoking Gun was acquired by Court TV in 2000. – Sony Pictures Television is behind eBayTV, airing live auctions. Due to complications in getting software out to stations, the show’s launch has been postponed until fall 2004, but should be able to benefit from Ebay’s 1 trillion or so worshippers. – National Public Radio is working with Microsoft-owned online journal Slate on a one-hour weekday program called ‘Day to Day, which will feature news topics of the day. – iVillage, a popular women’s website with an online community of almost 15 million visitors, is planning a TV series based on internet dating. Tentatively named iDate, the program will follow internet based relationships starting with the initial email exchanges and culminating with the face-to-face meeting. (Sources: AdAge, News.com, TrendCentral.)

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Springwise’s suggestion to everyone with a website boasting lots of visitors and good name recognition: start looking for the stories behind your content, visitors, members and customers, then turn it into a TV format and start pitching to the networks. Or, if you are in TV yourself, do some due diligence amongst your favorite websites. Perhaps you should buy one, like Court TV did with The Smoking Gun? May we suggest that Amazon.com set up some sort of book club hosted by one of the thousands of ‘garage influentials‘ who send in their book reviews to the site? We also think that Gawker.com would make for fantastic TV; a daily show loaded with (in their own words) “city news including urban dating rituals, no-ropes social climbing, Conde Nastiness, and downwardly mobile i-bankers” 😉 And that’s just the US: what about UK-based Lastminute.com, one of Europe’s largest online travel players, whose popular weekend trips must be the source of endless stories of romance, deceit and adventure? Last one: a Google.com show bringing us ‘today’s most interesting searches and the people behind it’. Oh well, you get the picture! (more…)
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They’ve been around in the U.S. since 1937. It’s about time Krispy Kreme’s hot original glazed doughnuts conquer the rest of the world. Probably unbeknownst to millions of North American Krispy Kreme doughnut addicts, is the fact that the rest of the world is pretty much Krispy Kreme free. The company, which started way back in 1937, operates 282 stores, raking in close to a billion dollars a year by selling what some consider to be the best and most luscious doughnuts on earth (ranging from ‘powdered blueberry filled’ to ‘maple glazed’). Krispy Kreme’s focus on freshness and top quality, its in-store experience (doughnuts are made on the premises, for all to see and smell), and its involvement with local neighborhoods give Krispy Kreme a Starbucks-kind of feel and aura. It is surprising, therefore, to learn that international expansion has only just begun, in 2002 to be precise, with franchise deals having taken place in Canada, Australia and the UK. That leaves another 185 countries or so deprived of ‘hot original glazed’ doughnuts, the kind that makes American consumers literally line up for hours every time Krispy Kreme adds a new doughnut variety or opens a new store.

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According to the Krispy Kreme website, ‘Asia’, ‘Eastern Europe’ and ‘Western Europe’ are all wide open for entrepreneurs bringing enough dough (no pun intended) to the table to build multiple stores (10 or more) in a particular market. A tasty opportunity to instantly become part of what Forbes magazine dubbed ‘one of America’s happening cult brands’ in 2001. Oh, and for the cash-strapped amongst you: open up your own mom-and-pop doughnut store NOW, be it in Berlin or Singapore, and who knows — you may be bought out when Krispy comes to your neck of the woods. Happened to a lot of coffee stores around the world over the last few years, so why not to doughnut bakeries? 😉 (more…) As promised in our August edition, here’s another new business idea from Virgin (there’s no stopping Richard Branson): selling cars, supermarket-style. After selling 12,000 cars online in the UK at www.virgincars.com, Virgin opened the world’s first auto department store in Manchester last May. The 2,800 square meter ‘Megastore’ offers 25 automotive brands under one roof, at cut-throat prices, and without salespeople stalking customers. Cars include new and up to one year old models, and are not grouped by brand but by themes like ‘crowd pleasers’, ‘two wheels’, ‘thrills’, ‘all in one’, ‘first class’ and ‘adventure’. In their own words: ‘No hard sell, no promises that we can’t keep and no auto jargon. Simply great cars, a relaxing environment, and friendly, helpful and knowledgeable staff, all under one big, entertaining roof. Take your pick from over 200 vehicles in stock with many ready for delivery from just 2 weeks. Or we can find your dream car from a further 4000 cars available through our extensive network of suppliers.’ (more…) Reality TV: as long as there’s money to be made, the well of new formats won’t run dry. Which show will turn out to be the new American Idol or Swedish Big Brother? Well, competing for another job than that of ‘Mega Pop Star’ should be big. NBC’s new reality show The Apprentice will feature approximately 20 contestants (including both Ivy League MBA graduates and street entrepreneurs with no college education), living together in a NY loft and vying for the chance to become an apprentice to a ‘master’. During the first season of The Apprentice, legendary real-estate tycoon Donald Trump will serve as the master and his business empire, The Trump Organization, will be the hub of the competition. Each week Trump will fire one candidate from the contest. In the season’s final episode, one promising and (scarily) ambitious person will emerge supreme and will be awarded a prestigious, year-long dream assignment — and a six-figure salary — that accompanies the status of becoming ‘the apprentice of a master.’ Shooting of the first 13-episode series begins mid-September, and will air around February 2004. (Source: NBC) (more…)