Lots of nice business model and social media marketing bits in this Fast Company piece on Ashton Kutcher and partners in Katalyst including this highly quotable takeaway:
"'When I have a conversation with someone and they say, 'I'm not worried about monetization yet,' that scares the sh*t out of me,' he says."
But, given the amount of attention Kutcher has received for his social media and funny content business model activities, Ellen McGirt seems to be playing dumb for an audience that she apparently assumes to be baffled by Kutcher's activities with such lines as:
"Kutcher, 31, is not exactly the image of a business visionary."
[at this point in history?]
"If this all seems far-fetched, hang in there."
[here speaking to the Katalyst approach to leveraging Kutcher's brand on the web. i missed the far-fetched part.]
"even if Kutcher turns out to be more style than substance and Katalyst doesn't become the Next Big Thing, Kutcher's experiment points toward a new model for the evolving media business that connects Hollywood, tech, and Madison Avenue. No kidding."
[not so strong an example of disbelief but isn't this why everybody in tech and entertainment business media have been writing about Kutcher for what seems like forever?]
"he goes on, settling into an unexpectedly credible argument."
[given the amount of credibility Kutcher has developed why would a credible argument be unexpected?]
Maybe I'm being too hard on Ms. McGirt but what's up with that clueless attitude? An attempt to ally herself with the common wo/man? Or another example of how journalists are overrated?
Update:
I'm realizing that McGirt's perspective is most likely based in confusing the actor for the role as well as the related eye candy factor. Which means that she's flipping a well-worn gendered script without really achieving anything.
Whatever. It's almost always a mistake for me to look too closely at such issues since most people don't really care. Besides, anything that implies that doing smart things online is foolish helps keep the competition down.

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