Monday, June 15, 2009

Cool, Niche Market Done Right

I'm still thinking about this IndieReader.com fiasco. You just can't force cool.

One nice niche market is The Horror Mall. They know their product and sell limited editions not available anywhere else. Their affiliate structure allows everyone to play and lets the customers decide what is good, not some cabal of secret gatekeepers.

Check them out (I'm sure most of you have).

I love the movie, Hype!, and I think it is appropriate to point out the pitfalls of manufacturing cool. (The movie is fantastic--a documentary about the rise of grunge in Seattle during the early '90s. We all know how that turned out.) If you haven't heard of/seen the movie Hype! I leave you with this:


6 comments:

Unknown said...

That looks like a good movie to watch.

Barry Napier said...

i loved nirvana and all, but Krist Novelselic always looks like a very mentally challenged giant whenever I see him.

Also...was that 2nd band Tad? Wow.

Jamie Eyberg said...

Thanks for the introduction to that. Now I am going to have to scour the internet for the entire thing.

You are right about Horror Mall.

Katey said...

Don't get me started about grunge. Or manufactured cool... and grunge.

But you're right-- there's no minting it, not after people turn 13 or so, and really not even before then. Disney just has that Evil Spell thing going on that fools some of them before that.

Fox Lee said...

Love Horror Mall : )

K.C. Shaw said...

Manufactured cool smells so bad it's a wonder even little kids fall for it. Real cool just gets super expensive and then stops being cool (I'm thinking of Converse AllStar Hightops, for some reason. I loved them when they were cheap and no one wore them. Now I wouldn't own a pair if you gave--well, okay, I would, but only if they were red.)